


Centonis

by avidita



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Age Difference, Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Choking, Codependency, Dirty Talk, Dom/sub, Emotional Manipulation, Extremely Dubious Consent, Face Slapping, Fix-It, Forced Orgasm, Hand Jobs, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Past Child Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rimming, Rough Oral Sex, Service Top, Temporary Amnesia, Unreliable Narrator, a bit of bondage, mentions of past grooming, who the fuck cast Johnny Depp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-28
Updated: 2016-12-15
Packaged: 2018-09-02 21:31:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 37,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8684092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avidita/pseuds/avidita
Summary: "centonis", Latin: made of old rags sewn together
 That small fizzle of burning obscurus darkness that flit away as Newt glanced to the rubble, it escaped through the obliviating rain, and reformed into Credence - weakened, injured, amnesiac, furious and tired. At least Mr.Graves is with him.   (While the situation might seem a little confusing in the beginning, it's all on purpose, and I'm going somewhere with this, I promise!)





	1. Out of the rain

**Author's Note:**

> Basically a canon-compliant fix-it for all of us who want Credence to have Mr.Graves the way he always wanted him, but hate Depp!Grindelwald with a nauseous passion.  
> Will get smuttier in upcoming chapters.
> 
> The narrator is unreliable because a tight point of view is colliding with amnesia, magical shenanigans, self-doubt, wrong conclusions and a river in Egypt.
> 
> I appreciate any comments you might have - you see a typo? Paste it into a comment and done! You find a plot hole? For the love of Graves POINT ME TO IT and I'll fix it. You have more to say? Yes pleeeaaase! :)

“Show me”, Mr. Graves said, crouching next to Credence’ huddled form; and Credence knew this couldn't be. 

“It's alright, just show me where you're hurt, my boy.”  
Mr. Graves sounded annoyed in the tightly controlled way that Credence was very familiar with. He tried to comply, but he couldn’t quite pinpoint the pain, it was everywhere, and a deep kind of throb unlike any pain he’d ever felt. Sharp, like bone-deep hunger in every part of his body, and dull and vague, as if his body hadn’t quite caught up with the sensation yet.

Credence tried opening his eyes, but the light hurt, his eyelids were tacky, and he couldn’t see clearly. He bit off a moan, hiccupping from the need to stay silent - always, always silent.

Mr. Graves’ voice rumbled close to his ear: “Credence, what happened? I can help, you know that. Tell me where.”

“I don’t… I can’t…”

A deep breath - Mr. Graves trying to be patient with him.

Credence could smell stone dust and wet wood, old dirt and the general stench of the city. There was a sour taste in his mouth. He could hear raindrops hitting glass.  
“Rain…”

“Yes, the fucking rain. There’s something seriously wrong with it.” Mr. Graves sounded downright angry, although his voice was still low. Then, sharper: “Is it the rain? Did it affect you?”

Credence could feel tears leaking out of his eyes. This couldn’t be. Mr. Graves being here with him, being angry on his behalf, wanting to help, this couldn’t be. His heart was burning with an abyss of never-ending pain, and his head was spinning trying to figure out the problem.

Mr. Graves asked: “Credence, what is the last thing you remember?”

Credence hiccupped again, and then he felt the slap of a gloved hand in his face.  
“I…” Credence blinked against the swirl of dark shapes and jelly-like patches of light. “I was at home, in the church, I… you were there, I asked you… to help.”

Mr. Graves huffed. “Yes. The obscurus had destroyed the church, I remember.” Gloved fingers wiped at Credence’ sluggish tears, cleaning up the gunk in his eyes. “And then?”

Credence vaguely remembered fear and anger and slowly crumbling hope, then, nothing.  
“I don’t…”

“Dammit.” He could hear Mr. Graves stand up, feel the heat to his side leaving him. “Stay here. I’ll be back.”

With the swoosh and inner-ear pop Credence had become accustomed to, Mr. Graves disappeared.

 

In a sick rush, anger flooded Credence’ chest. He tried breathing it down, terror jerking his heart into a frenzy from one second to the next. 

The fury was dangerous, he knew. But he didn’t remember why. Which made him even more furious. Witches could take people’s memories, he knew. He’d seen it done to his Ma, had narrowly escaped the same fate by playing exceptionally stupid. This felt like he’d imagine that would feel. And Mr. Graves had been angry as well.  
Had someone taken both their memories?

Credence fought against wave after wave of fury, very much like one would try to fight down nausea. It felt like hours went by. He broke out into a sweat, his mouth fell dry, then watered far too much again. His mind was reeling, and every fiber of his body still burning in a strange aftertaste of general injury.

Then, when he’d just successfully fought down a wave of anger at having his mind been tampered with, he thought of the same happening to Mr. Graves, and the fury broke free in a small explosion of darkness and rage. How _dared_ they.

The rage cleared out his brain, like a dislocated shoulder popping back into place: Horrible pain followed by relief. It shook out the fog and disorientation, and left behind a new ache, stinging like a fresh burn inside his skull.

Then, actual nausea hit, as if he’d just run a full-out sprint for his life, after not eating for two days.  
Credence curled up, grabbed his skull and whimpered.

 

With a swoosh and pop, Mr. Graves’ tall dark figure loomed over him. “What was that!”

Credence breath hitched. This couldn’t be. 

He remembered now, in a swirl of memories flooding his mind all at once: Mr. Graves had hit him, then casually thrown him away like a used-up tool, then chased after him trying to woo him back, while Credence was being consumed by the dark and burning rage. 

Mr. Graves had hit the wizard with the nice voice who knew what was happening to Credence, who’d tried to help, hit that man with painful lightning, then, with the witch who’d tried to save him from Ma, and the helpful wizard, Mr. Graves had stood between Credence and the witches who came to kill him…  
Then Credence remembered pain and light, so much light, and from far away the realization, that Mr. Graves didn’t even exist.

But now he was here.  
That couldn’t be.

Credence had wanted Shaw punished, he’d wanted Ma to just go away and leave Modesty and him alone, and he’d wanted to keep Mr. Graves and the hope he’d given him, he’d wanted him to take his betrayal back and take him with.  
Shaw and Ma had died. Horrible, but certainly possible. But this?

“You’re not...” Credence breathed.

Mr. Graves crouched close to him. “The rain has obliviating properties. It’s only supposed to work on muggles though, and only on bad memories. The aurors are repairing a lot of damage to the city, and marveling at the rain…” He sounded angry again. “One of them saw me and attacked on sight. I have no idea why. I’m missing a ton of memories, actually. I can’t even piece together the last few days. And you…”

Credence stared at Mr. Graves shoes in front of his face, while the man’s gloved hand carefully petted his hair.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with you, Credence. And then I felt this terrible pull, like you were… summoning me.”  
He leaned forward to whisper at Credence’ ear: “Tell me, dear boy. What was that?”

Credence blinked against the free-flowing tears. This couldn’t be real. The rage had killed his Ma, and Chastity. Modesty had been deathly afraid of him. He was a monster, a devil, maybe, the worst kind of witch, and Mr. Graves… had betrayed him, and wasn’t real in the first place.

Mr. Graves grabbed Credence’ collar, pulled him upright, threw him into the wall at Credence’ back, and snarled at his ear.  
“Tell me what’s going on!”

“I don’t know!” Credence’ voice wasn’t much more than a croak, but he could see Mr. Graves sharp eyes and thin snarl clearly now, the tears were drying up, and the nausea was settling down.

Mr. Graves’ hand cradled his jaw, and he took a deep breath, asking much more calmly:  
“The obscurus destroyed the church. You asked me for help. How long ago was that?”

“I don’t know.” Mr. Graves’ hand gripped him harder, and Credence yelped: “A day maybe?”

Mr. Graves blinked. “It tore through half of Manhattan in that time. Did we find it?”

He tried looking down, but Mr. Graves didn’t let him.  
Mr. Graves was here.  
“It’s me.”

Mr. Graves’ dark eyes widened a little, then a delighted smile spread his lips. He whispered: “Of course it is. It’s you! Merlin, and you survived this long, with such destructive power under a tight lid!”

Credence remembered Mr. Graves looking at him like that, saying these things to him, when it had already been too late, when the rage had already taken over.  
Fury was coiling in his chest again and he hissed:  
“You said nobody could teach me magic, and that you were done with me.”

Mr. Graves blinked slowly.  
“And then?”

“And then… and then I wanted to kill you.”

“But..?”

Credence looked down again. 

Mr. Graves’ thumb caressed Credence’ lower lip. He said in the low, intimate tone that haunted Credence’ dreams: “But you didn’t. Because it might be connected to your rage, but you can control it.”

Credence whispered: “You said that. And I said I didn’t want to. But then I couldn’t hit you anyway.”

Fingers carded through Credence’ hair, and he was so tired. Mr. Graves said:  
“So you passed the test then.”

Credence’ head jerked up a little, and he stared into Mr. Graves’ glinting eyes with growing anger. “It was a test?!”

Mr. Graves laughed a little, which made the fury in Credence’ chest try to break out. Darkness crept up around them, and Mr. Graves laughed harder.  
“Look at you! There’s no need to get mad at _that_ , my boy! I trusted you to pass with flying colors - Credence, I literally trusted you with my life!”

Credence sagged against Mr. Graves, exhausted again. The pain came and went in waves, but didn’t seem to die away at all.  
He’d known that, hadn’t he. A part of him, a small part that he rarely listened to, had known. He’d known that he was being provoked, just like Ma had tried to do again and again. But where she had forced him to swallow everything down, Mr. Graves had wanted him to explode.

Mr. Graves cradled Credence’ head to his shoulder. “Still. I am missing memories, my own aurors attacked me, and you’re…” He turned his head a little, nudging Credence with his jaw. “What’s wrong with you”, he asked, so gentle and truly worried, that the echo of a thousand times those words had been asked with derision or mockery died off as soon as it was evoked.

“Before, when you let your powers run free and destroyed something, where you hurt like this, afterwards?”

Credence shook his head.  
“The aurors shot white light at me. It… hurt.”

He could feel Mr. Graves’ form straighten up. “You fought aurors?!”

“You… tried to help.” Mr. Graves tried to ask something else, but Credence’ harsh laughter interrupted him. “You’re not real.”

For a moment, Mr. Graves fell silent. Then, carefully, he said: “I am right here, Credence.”

“You can’t be. They hit me, and you were furious, and then they caught you, and the wizard in the blue coat, he made you blonde, and…” Credence clung to Mr. Graves’ coat, pressing himself against the man.  
He could smell the sharp aftershave, the pomade and cigarettes, just like always, but it couldn’t be real.

Mr. Graves pulled him away, one hand at Credence’ neck. Credence could hear the tightly controlled impatience in his voice: a belt still looped around fingers, not yet hanging free, not yet readied to lash out.  
“What are you talking about.”

“You’re not real. You’re a mask.”

Mr. Graves looked to the rain hitting the windows, then straightened up again, coming to a decision.  
“You need sleep. And I need information.”

With a sickening swoosh, and pain screaming through Credence’ bones, they were standing outside of a hotel. Credence’ knees were giving out, and Mr. Graves swept him up into his arms.  
The darkness that crept up from all sides now was warm and gentle, and Credence could simply close his eyes.


	2. The hollow man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _We are the hollow men_

The boy was still unconscious when Graves deposited him carefully on one of the two thin beds. He had purchased a seedy room for the week, making the unwashed no-maj forget about payment.

Graves glanced around.  
The window needed warding; a flick of his wrist took care of that. The door as well, but also the thin wall to the left, and the water pipes for the washbasin next to the door.  
Graves slowly turned around, checking the ceiling and the floor.

Once he was satisfied, he crossed his arms and looked down on the unresponsive boy on the bed, twirling his wand between two fingers.

The rain had stopped, and the evening light was still much brighter than the dim bedside lamp Graves’ had turned on.

What did he know. He was a wizard, as was the boy. He was vastly more powerful than the boy… but the boy was the most dangerous wizard in the world right now. Well, that kind of conflicting information did not help at all.

Again. His name was Graves… the boy’s name was Credence Barebone.  
Credence had been tortured, slowly, cruelly. He was injured in more ways than one, and Graves needed to keep him safe.

Graves inclined his head a little, frowning. The boy definitely wasn’t his son, although he could be, age-wise.  
That thought did not sit well with Graves.  
But the way he wanted to touch the boy - or deny him touch - that feeling was, in a way, allergic to thinking of the boy as his child or ward.

So, lovers, then. That simplified things.

What else did he know?

They were in danger, but he couldn’t pinpoint the source.

Graves was an auror, wizard police, and in a leadership position. And he was intelligent enough to look at the thought “wizard police”, and grow very uneasy. Why would he need to explain that to himself, if he was indeed a wizard.

Another thought: The boy had not grown up under wizards, but under no-majs- muggles- non-magical people. And again the feeling of gear-wheels in his mind not interlocking properly. A mental crunch as if someone scratched fingernails over chalkboard.

Fine, then. There was something horribly wrong with Graves’ mind, which made all further evaluations useless - he couldn’t trust his own thought process.

 

The boy was having a nightmare anyway, and swirls of darkness where seeping out of his form. Graves didn’t mind that at all, which, again, was an alarming kind of mental creak. But it could prove inconvenient, and the boy desperately needed sleep to heal.

So he took off his coat, rolled up his sleeves and went to get warm water.

 

Washing dust, dirt and cold sweat off Credence’ body was soothing to Graves’ frayed nerves. He’d warmed the room with another absent-minded wave, so the boy wasn’t shivering, although he was naked and being attacked by a damp cloth.

Just touching him had made the darkness recede, as Graves’ had known it would.

 

Credence was slowly waking up. When his eyelids fluttered open, Graves put a cool hand to his brow, stroking his fringe up, and meeting his eyes for a moment.

The boy was alarmed, quickly getting flushed down to his chest, and was visibly searching for something to say.

 

Graves helped him sit up, handed him the glass of water he’d prepared, and shushed him:  
“It’s alright, drink as much as you can. We’re safe for now.”

Credence drank all the water. Then, flustered, he looked down at his own body. Graves took care not to let his amusement show as the boy's cock twitched in surprised arousal.

He put one hand on the boy's neck and pulled him into a loose hug.  
“You’re unharmed, I couldn’t find a single injury. But your body has been strained intensely, so you need water and rest most of all.”

Credence leaned into him, but his hands were clawing at the blanket under him.

“It’s alright”, Graves whispered, then took Credence’ wrist and lifted his hand to his own vest. Credence’ breath hitched.

Graves lowered his face a little, and placed a lewd, wet kiss at Credence’ throat.

The boy’s shocked moan seemed very loud in the silent room.

Graves grinned into Credence’ skin, then let his big hand gently stroke down Credence’ underfed flank.

The boy’s hand now clawed into Graves’ vest and shirt, and his cock was fully erect. Graves looked down to it, and Credence whispered:  
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I can’t help it-”

“Shhh.” Graves put a finger to Credence’ red lips. Then he let his fingers trail down the boy’s front, towards his prize.

Credence twitched and jerked in his arms. Graves held him still with the other hand on his neck.

“This is wrong”, Credence croaked.

Graves stilled. “Do you want me to stop?”

The boy let his head hang, his shoulders hunching down even more. “No.”

When Graves touched his erection, Credence reacted with a full-body jerk, and a bit-off sob.

It took only a few very gentle tugs, and Graves licking at the point where throat met shoulder, for Credence to orgasm.

Graves could feel his mind settle even more, an ignored mental itch had been scratched.

Credence was shaking, his legs were twitching, and his breathing wracked by uneven hiccups and moans.

Graves let the hand on his neck caress him carefully. Then he asked:  
“That felt good, didn’t it?”

Credence started to cry. Graves fought down a violent wave of annoyance, his hand on the boy’s neck tightening.

A burst of laughter broke through the sobs, and Credence rasped: “It’s wrong!”

Graves hmmed, then let go of Credence to get the washcloth again and clean up the mess.

With a jerk, Credence grabbed his soiled hand and licked it. Graves blinked at the apparent skill the boy showed at getting him clean quickly and efficiently.

Graves nodded slowly. “Did you lick your own hand like that, every time?”

Credence stilled.

“Did your mother punish you for that as well, if she found out you’d touched yourself?” 

Credence nodded slowly, his eyes still downcast.  
Rage boiled through Graves, and darkness encroached on his field of vision. He took a few deep breaths, then met Credence’ eyes, who stared at him anxiously and with clear confusion and doubt.

“Well, if it’s wrong, then everything about me is also wrong.” Graves shrugged with an annoyed huff. “As far as we know.”

Credence snorted through the still flowing tears.

Graves cleaned up the mess on his stomach and chest, and Credence lips fell open. He glanced up at Graves with wonder and adoration, and Graves felt bigger and stronger for it. Which showed a pathetic dependency on this boy’s view of him.

Graves stood up and said: “Get under the covers.”

The upper blanket had been scratchy. And Credence sighed in relief and tired comfort at the feeling of slipping between the sheets under it.

Graves sat down on the other bed, dried off his hands and wiped them over his face. His arms on his knees, he looked over to Credence, who, sheet up to his nose, glanced at him shyly.

Outside, the rain had started up again, but this one felt benign. The lights of the city flickered through the streaks on the glass.

“Go to sleep, Credence.”

 

 

 

With long strides, Graves walked towards the Woolworth building, no-majs… no, muggles… no… well, _people_ were making way like the ocean for an Atlantic passenger liner.

Graves couldn’t shut off his brain, trying to make sense of everything. Things that by all measures of logic should feel familiar… just didn’t.

He knew he always walked like the world should bow to him, tall, dark and intimidating. But he didn’t think he’d ever been self-conscious about it. It felt like playing a part, like echoes of what he should be resounded in an empty shell.  
Credence had called him ‘not real’ and ‘a mask’. The boy had a sure magical instinct, that Graves knew for sure.

 

Graves crossed the street in front of the Woolworth building, his hand automatically reaching for his badge. He glanced at it, then stopped right in front of the doors, taking a closer look.  
He still didn’t remember his first name, but it should be written on this.

The badge was unreadable and blotchy, as if washed out. Graves looked up to the inscription on the building, the cold feeling in his gut suggesting it was him, that he’d turned unable to read. But no, the building’s name was easily decipherable.

The guard manning the door stared at him, one hand at his hip. Ready to pull his wand, even surrounded by no-majs.  
Graves put his badge away again, lifted his hands in obvious surrender, and slowly came closer.

Within seconds, he was surrounded by aurors and whisked away into an interrogation cell.  
Which was utterly unfamiliar. It shouldn’t, should it?

 

The aurors had searched him, and now a woman with kind dark eyes sat down in front of him, flanked by two aurors on each side, all four wands drawn on him. Behind them, closest to the door, a pretty red-head peeped around their backs.

The seated auror laid out his unreadable badge, his wand, and his folded coat.  
“Who are you.”

Graves leaned back, his hands still shackled behind his back.

“My name is Graves. I’m an auror. Well, I lead them. And our headquarters is in this building. I don’t remember much else.”

She nodded slowly, her eyes taking in every detail of his face.

“Where did you get that coat.”

Graves lifted an eyebrow. “No idea.”

Now she leaned back and pointed at the badge and the wand. “What about those.”

Graves simply blinked at her slowly, very unimpressed.

The corner of her mouth twitched in amusement.  
“Okay, what _do_ you remember.”

“It was raining. The rain felt wrong, so I went to recon. The city had taken damage, and my men and women were repairing the city. They mentioned the rain. I wanted to ask them about it, but they attacked me.”

The woman nodded.  
“Do you know who I am?”

“No”, Graves sighed, fighting his annoyance.

“Porpentina Goldstein. You were my mentor when I started here. You call me Tina.”

“Tina”, Graves muttered, checking her features for any twinge of recognition, then frowned. “Nothing.”

She nodded again, very slowly.

“Do you know who Gellert Grindelwald is?”

“No.”

“You were investigating him in Europe. Apparently, you must have met him. He… impersonated you.”

Graves blinked. A mask, Credence had said. He stared at nothing, trying to piece this together.

Tina asked: “Does the name Credence Barebone ring a bell?”

Graves shook his head slightly. The red-headed girl at the door made a sound. The aurors straightened their arms again, and Tina lifted her chin.  
Graves sniffed a breath.  
“It’s strange… I need to keep him safe.”

Silence for a moment. The redhead could detect lies, not unlike Credence’ mother - Graves closed his eyes, wishing for his hands to be free so that he could wipe his brow. Not even wishing for his thoughts to make sense anymore.  
With a dark rush, the surety engulfed him that if he truly wanted the shackles to be gone, they would be.

The auror asked:  
“Let’s try this again. Are you Gellert Grindelwald?”

“No.”

“Are you in any way associated with Gellert Grindelwald?”

Graves blinked slowly. Lying was out, which didn’t mean he needed to be forthright. But then, he was here to get the help of his people.  
“I don’t support him, if that’s what you mean, and if I conclude correctly that he is a criminal. But I might have been affected by him in some way. I can’t be sure.”

“Tell me, what do you associate with the MACUSA and its security department?”

“With the aurors you mean?” He thought: Power. And danger. And safety. Help. He said: “Well, it was the one place I wanted to come for help.”

The auror stood up and smiled weakly.  
“I believe you. But we have to make sure.”

Graves nodded, then asked: “What’s my full name, birthdate and address? It feels horrible not to know.”

He could see her deciding to give in, then she told him. Neither ‘Percival’ nor the date evoked anything, but what he truly had wanted was the address anyway.

 

They whisked him into the wizarding hospital, where he was placed under tight security and poked and prodded with wands and questions alike. It took less than an hour to become quite clear that they had no idea what was wrong with him.

His wand was just a piece of wood, apparently, unfilled and non-magical.  
He had apparated with that.

He was under no obliviation effect, but his memory was wiped.

The healer’s grew more and more spooked about this detail or that, and Graves grew uneasier by the minute.  
He glanced at the guard aurors in the hallway, checked the window’s spell to keep him in, and stared out over the dark city. He could feel the exact direction where Credence was still fast asleep in.

 

This was a waste of time.

They had hung his coat by the door, so he put it on again, and with a boom and crash, the wall and window were rubble, and he was on his way to 58th street, to the apartment of Percival Graves.


	3. The shadow aspect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _...because one tends to reject or remain ignorant of the least desirable aspects of one's personality..._

The apartment was a magical exclusion zone, repulsing the interest of no-majs, and informing wizards and witches that there was an ongoing auror investigation.  
Graves stepped through without disturbing the barrier.

The apartment was small, and clearly belonging to a single man. No coziness in sight.  
Graves could feel magical residue, tacky and bitter. 

He slowly made his way through the small hallway, sitting room and kitchen to the bedroom. A few clothes were thrown over the back of a chair, newspaper pages were strewn over the kitchen table. A dirty coffee cup.

Graves wished for his wand, in a detached way. He had no idea what he could have done with one, no spells came to mind. It was as if he simply felt he’d look more the part with one.

There was a mirror next to a closet. He frowned at himself, then stepped closer. His face looked… wrong. Distorted, but not actually deformed. Every detail seemed correct, but the entirety of his face was uncomfortably unfamiliar.

His mental gears were obstructing each other again. It made Graves angry and tired… and feeling stupid. He hated feeling this way.

 

Where three walls met in a strange angle, accommodating the shape of the house, dark magical energy tried to hide from him.

“Hello”, Graves whispered. He let his fingers stroke over the area, slowly, carefully. There was something big hidden here. And he needed to get in.

He was a wizard, and closed doors, walls, wards, shackles, nothing could hinder him. He could go wherever he wanted to.  
But he just didn’t know how to get at this.

For a moment, he contemplated asking the auror for help, Tina. He’d been a mentor to her, surely she was still bound to him in old loyalty at least, adoration if he was lucky.  
But no, he didn’t want to ask for help. Asking for help never resulted in anything good.

Rage boiled up in him again, and he didn’t know why.  
Had he asked someone for help, and been betrayed for it? No. Hadn’t he asked someone for help, and then not been trusted with the truth?

His mind just didn’t cooperate, and Graves was _done_ feeling like this. He needed to get it together. He needed to be there for Credence, he needed to be himself again.

The longer he stood in front of the corner, helpless and out of ideas, the angrier he grew. Darkness at the corners of his vision, a lump in his throat, pressing against his growing need to roar in fury.

Then, with a booming explosion of black rage, the corner fell away, and a hidden chamber appeared.

Graves gasped for air, trying to get himself under control again.

There was a figure huddled in the corner of the chamber. He was naked, and filthy, grey hair clumped together or standing out in strings like dirty pubes. The stench was horrifying.  
There were patches of skin missing, burns, infected wounds.  
Only magic kept this still alive.

Graves stepped closer and crouched down. He tried meeting the eyes of the man, but they were vacant and empty.  
It was his own face, but hollowed out and melted by neglect and agony. Graves stared at him, and now at least the queasy feeling that looking in the mirror had given him started to make a little sense.

The original Percival Graves was a shell of a human being. His state was something Credence could never see under any condition - it would injure the boy even further.  
But Graves recognized the way his features were arranged much better than he had when looking at the whole and hale mirror image.

People didn’t like looking at photographs of themselves, because they were used to the mirror image. He wasn’t Percival Graves, was he. He was a mask, carefully crafted by someone who’d looked at the auror from the outside.

 

Graves’ head hurt.  
What had happened. Had Grindelwald created him, then discarded him? That didn’t explain most of the dissonant thoughts he’d had.  
He was still so angry; the fury and darkness hadn’t receded completely again.

Graves extended a hand to touch the real man in front of him, who at least was present enough to shrink away from him. 

“I’m not Grindelwald”, Graves said, then doubted his own surety of that fact. “I won’t hurt you.”

The man still didn’t look at him.

“Hello? Anyone home?” Graves sneered, then stood up.

He hadn’t noticed until right then how much he’d hoped to find here. How clearly he’d expected whatever he’d find to solve... everything.

He was so done feeling helpless and stupid and alone.

The rage exploded again, consuming the cowering man and the apartment, rushing through brick walls to tear and claw at the grey, towering walls of the streets of New York.

 

Percival found himself walking over underground tracks, slower than usual. His head hurt, but with a sharper kind of pain now, cleared from the fog of apparent stupidity that had plagued him, cleared from the haze of horror that had shrouded everything.

His name was Percival Graves, director of Magical Security and head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement of the MACUSA.

He swallowed, his throat raw and burning.  
He leaned his head this way and that, his vertebra cracking.

In the distance, he could hear a train approaching, so he apparated up to the street level.

He landed with a stumble, which hadn’t happened in a long time. Pressing his eyes closed, he walked a few steps. Deep breaths also helped.

The boy, Credence, would be awake soon. The no-majs were already swarming to their jobs or coffee shops, a typical early morning in late November in New York.  
He needed to get something to eat for the boy.

He directed his steps to that purpose, and could feel his brain slowly starting to work again.

 

He had two sets of memories:  
Crouching down, staring at the shell of an auror, tortured within an inch of his life - but he couldn’t go that way, he needed to keep his rage under control.  
Huddling in the corner, not even quite noticing the looming figure of his own shape above him, the figure that had meant nothing but betrayal, torment and terror - but that way lay fury, too.

One string was easily analyzed: Grindelwald had impersonated him and kept him imprisoned, siphoning specific memories of his mind whenever he needed some bit of information. Having a bit of fun when playing the good auror was starting to smart.  
Leaving him, Percival Graves, but a shadow of a man.

The other string was still missing bits and pieces. He’d been with Credence, who, Dyer’s curse, was an obscurial. 

Percival stopped in his tracks, making a few people jump and swerve to avoid him.  
An actual obscurial.  
He looked at his own hands. His old auror mentor’s voice reprimanded him in the back of his head: Don’t confuse conclusions with hard facts.

Credence had been suppressing his magic, and it had broken free into a powerful obscurus. This was not knowledge the beaten auror had possessed, this was something Graves had known.

How much power did it take to create, hmm, a dark version of a patronus charm?  
The tar-like memories flickered through Percival’s mind: He’d apparated several times without a wand, once even with the boy in tow.  
He’d destroyed strong stone walls and auror wards alike, with nothing but a furious thought.

Credence had summoned him back at one point, hadn’t he? And Percival still knew in which direction the boy was to be found.

 

Percival took a deep breath and straightened up fully, no-majs shrinking away from his sharp, unseeing gaze flickering over them. He felt weaker than ‘Graves’ had, before, but nearly perfectly hale compared to how he’d been in Grindelwald’s chamber.  
His mind was worn and tired, but so sharp again. Strategies flowing out into different directions, and details prioritizing themselves without much effort needed.  
So, Grindelwald hadn’t destroyed everything of Percival Graves, just torn off bits, and left the rest burned and bleeding.

The fury was hard to push down. How dared the bastard.

One mystery remained: Where did some of the knowledge, quasi-memories come from, that clearly belonged to Grindelwald?

 

First, feeding the boy, and letting him heal up.

Then, patching things up with the MACUSA.  
He wanted those resources back at his fingertips. But also, he needed to keep Credence safe, and therefore also keep the obscurus secret.  
This required a deft touch: Queenie apparently was an unregistered legilimens - or possibly, registered now - and he wanted his men and women to trust him again.

So he needed to get a straight story that left out anything alluding to Credence’ power and how he’d apparently created a second version of Percival Graves out of thin air.  
Good thing they’d already asked him about Grindelwald.

A thin smile stretched his lips.

He had time to finalize his story. He was far too tired to do so right now anyway.  
Yes, the MACUSA would hunt for the new disturbance that had destroyed Graves’ apartment, but if someone knew how to hide from them, it was their head of Magical Security and Law Enforcement.

 

First he needed to find a rich no-maj to steal some money from. Percival felt the distant twinge of distaste at that. But much more important was the sure knowledge that Credence would object to stealing in general. Although… he’d probably object much more if Percival stole from a poor no-maj.

These impulses to take care of the boy, to make sure Credence got what he wanted, were starting to be a real nuisance. Well, at least they came with a ton of magical power...

Percival lifted a hand to his brow and took a deep breath through his nose. Then he started walking again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Dyer's curse": after [Moll Dyer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moll_Dyer)
> 
> Come find me on [tumblr](http://fanfuchs.tumblr.com/)! :)


	4. Banking the fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Burning like embers, falling, tender_

Credence woke to the smell of chocolate and coffee.

He sat up, utterly confused.  
The sheets and blanket he’d burrowed under slipped down. With a shocked jerk, Credence pulled them up again, hunching forward.  
He was naked, in a bed more comfortable than anything he’d ever slept in. Fresh morning light spilled through the window, illuminating the silver hair of Mr. Graves’s right temple.

Mr. Graves, who was sitting on the other bed, elbows on his knees, face half hidden by his hands, was watching him.

Credence felt his eyes widen. He was naked under the sheets. Mr. Graves had… he’d actually…

“Good morning, Credence.” Mr. Graves straightened up and slightly nudged his chin towards the shared bedside table, where a steaming cup and a plate full of chocolate buns sat, their chocolate bits still glistening wetly.

Credence swallowed drily, glanced back at Mr. Graves, who was slowly starting to smile, then abandoned his grip on the sheets to grab the plate and stuff his face.

After the second bun, he had to slow down, his stomach was cramping too much.

 

“I didn’t know if you even like coffee, but there’s a lot of fat milk in it.”

Credence felt his shoulders hunch up again, as he got the cup and sipped from it. He’d had coffee before, but tertiary one only, made from grounds that had already been used twice.  
This was a completely different thing, overwhelming his senses with aroma, helping the sticky bun make it’s way down his throat, soothing his belly with warmth.

He blinked, ate some more, then looked at Mr. Graves again.  
The wizard looked exhausted, a haggard edge around his jawline, and deep shadows under his eyes. 

His stubble had grown overnight.  
Credence remembered the feeling of that stubble at his shoulder, as those lips had closed over his skin and Mr. Graves had tongued at him.

Credence swallowed again, curling around the plate and cup on his lap.

 

“How do you feel.”

Credence glanced up. “Better, sir.”

Mr. Graves frowned a little. “That’s good. And?”

“Still a little hungry?”

“Then eat more. And?”

Credence looked down. Mr. Graves huffed a breath.

“Well how about this. I will guess at how you feel, and you tell me if it’s accurate.”

Credence nodded quickly.

“You’re overjoyed because your Ma is dead, and you want to celebrate.”

Credence frowned a little, then shook his head.

“Good.” Mr. Graves said. “So you will say no to nonsense. How about this: You wish you knew the rules. You want to make sure I’m happy with your behavior, but you don’t know how. You’re compelled to comply, but with what? For I have not adhered to any script you have learned, and instead of telling you what I want you to do… I have done pretty much exactly what _you_ wanted _me_ to do.”

Credence stared at Mr. Graves, fear slowly starting to curl in his chest. Mr. Graves looked angry.

“You wish you knew the rules. Correct?”

Credence slowly dared to nod.

“Drink up, and eat as much as you can.”

Credence complied. The seed of fear in his chest turning to anger, which he expertly swallowed down.

 

“Now, there’s no wrong answer to this. Tell me how you feel.”

“There’s always a wrong answer”, Credence said in a low voice.

“Not if all I want is information, and I don’t particularly care about its shape or form.”

Credence nodded a little.

After a moment, Mr. Graves prompted: “Start with your body. Hungry, fine. Do you need the bathroom? Are you in pain?”

Credence nodded, then said: “But it’s much better.” He hunched down again. “I’m… naked.”

Mr. Graves waved his hand over to the end of the bed he was sitting on. “Put these one once you’re done eating. The bathroom is down the hall.”

Credence started eating again. His eyes fell closed on their own, and his chewing slowed, so that he could relish the taste even more.

 

“Go on, Credence. Are you angry? Afraid?”

Credence shook his head. Then he carefully said: “I don’t understand, though. They… the aurors took you… away. Un… unmasked.”

Mr. Graves nodded.  
“That wasn’t me. That was a man named Gellert Grindelwald, who was using my face.”

Credence stared at Mr. Graves again, who continued: “I’m still missing a lot of memories, but I am very sure that I am Percival Graves, and not him.”

Credence blinked. Then he asked: “When… when did he take over.”

Mr. Graves quick and bright smile made him look much younger. “That is a very smart question.”  
Credence flushed.  
“I am not absolutely sure about that, but before you ever saw my face, I presume. However, he didn’t just wear my face. He was trying to be me, as best as he could. This also means that I don’t quite remember you, apart from some strange magical residue - echoes, if you will.”

 

Credence eyed the man on the other bed.  
He felt his jaw clench. “You kissed me.”

“I did no such thing. I licked you.”

Credence swallowed the immediate flare of pain down. “How did you… where did you come from, when I… woke up. When it rained.”

“I believe you summoned me. And these clothes. Credence… you are an incredibly powerful wizard.”

Credence glanced up. Icy cold started to spread in his belly. He wanted Mr. Graves to be there, to be by his side, he wanted him to touch him again. But if what the man said was true… did he make the wizard do things he didn’t really want to do?

The fear turned into anger very quickly. No one ever wanted Credence. He was a leftover, afterthought, seen as something barely better than trash - if he was lucky.

His gaze had wandered to the empty plate again. A warm hand settled on his neck. Mr. Graves asked:  
“Why does that make you angry?”

Credence leaned into the touch, shrugging a little.  
Mr. Graves’ grip tightened, and he gently shook him by the neck.  
“No, tell me. Because whatever I said or did to make you angry, I need to stop.”

Mr. Graves’ other hand gestured at the flickers of darkness that seeped up around Credence’ form. Credence hadn’t even noticed. He twitched and asked:  
“Does that happen to all wizards?”

“No. Only very powerful ones that were unable to use their magic. That have been punished for trying. That have been tortured.”

Credence glanced up. He’d seen similar darkness ooze out of Mr. Graves.  
He whispered: “Where were you while Grindelwald…”

Mr. Graves leaned his brow against Credence’ temple. “Hidden. Caged. ...used.”

Credence nodded a little, his heart beating a mile a minute.

Mr. Graves let go of him, went back to his own bed and waved at the clothes again.  
“Go on.”

Those were quite a bit away from him. Credence put the plate and cup back on the side table, then, helplessly, grabbed the sheets while trying to stand up.

“Don’t…” Mr. Graves put a hand to his brow as if he’d developed a sudden headache. “Please don’t make a mess of the bed. I washed you. I searched you for injuries. I am intimately familiar with your naked body.

Credence flushed, but he nodded and stood up. 

Automatically, his hands went to cover himself. Mr. Graves sighed. “Truly, it is far too late for modesty.”

Credence twitched. The cold flush went over his neck that always meant he’d forgotten something important. Modesty. He had no idea where she was or if she was even alive.

Mr. Graves watched him, silent.

Credence cleared his throat. “Mr. Graves, do you know where my sister is?”

“No. But you’re right, we should look for her.” Another sigh. “I have a plan. We’ll look for her the moment we can.”

Credence nodded gratefully.

 

It was just two steps to reach the pile of dark cloth. The underwear was on top, softer and more form fitting than anything Credence had ever worn before.  
The socks, shirt, the trousers and the vest - all of it was made from much finer material than Credence had ever even touched - unless Mr. Graves had been the one wearing it.

The belt was a heavy, wide thing, inconvenient to use as a switch, and its weight would make it slow, the hits less painful.  
Once he’d put it on, he could feel the trousers and the vest hugging his form. His hands went down his sides on their own volition.

Mr. Graves had shuffled back on the bed. He was leaning against the headboard, arms crossed, one ankle over the other.  
“You look good”, he said in a low voice.

Credence smiled a little, glancing up at him. 

Mr. Graves' voice was still low and gentle. “You’re a tall man, actually. Stand up straight for me.”

Credence slowly straightened up, his shoulders protesting a little, making the overall hum of pain flare up again.  
He glanced at Mr. Graves, who stared at him with obvious, earnest hunger.

Heat coiled up in Credence’ lower belly. The last time Mr. Graves, no, Grindelwald had looked at him like that, he’d been lost in a miasma of hate and fury. But here, now, he was just… doing nothing. And Mr. Graves looked at him like this nonetheless.

 

Mr. Graves said: “Go use the bathroom.”

Credence went, swallowing down a little flicker of anger.  
In the hallway, there was a large, half-blind mirror. Credence’ hair was all over the place, but the clothes were cut so well, he looked… well, he looked rich, and powerful, and really, really nice. 

Credence felt his lips twitch into a smile. He straightened up his shoulders again and thought of Mr. Graves wanting him, wanting him to look just like this.  
He was not used to the giddy pleasure that thrummed to him. It felt very close to fear, but completely different at the same time.

 

When he came back, Mr. Graves was asleep.  
Credence tried to be quiet, and simply went to sit on the other bed.

Mr. Graves looked older without the fierce awareness in his sharp eyes. His lashes were very long. His cheeks were much more hollowed out than Credence remembered - right, because he’d been Grindelwald’s prisoner.

Credence stared at the floor. He wanted to kill Grindelwald. He’d used this man’s face and demeanor to play with Credence, to get him to - his heart stuttered, and sudden fear bloomed again.  
Hadn’t Mr. Graves said that throwing him aside had been a test? How did he know that? Magical residue, echoes, he’d said. So there was still an echo of Grindelwald inside of Mr. Graves?

He suddenly felt exhausted again. He’d probably be safer if he left. He didn’t want to. He wanted to stay with Mr. Graves, he’d always, always wanted to be taken away by the wizard, and now he’d touched him, and fed him, and clothed him, and then, then he’d _looked_ at him.

Credence glanced up again.  
He knew what it was like to be caged. He knew what it was like to be used. But to have this happen to Mr. Graves of all people… And yes, maybe the weeks in which he’d met him, he’d not actually been the original Mr. Graves. But Grindelwald had played him. And from the little Credence had seen now, he was even better than Grindelwald’s version.

And Grindelwald had hurt him.  
Credence took a deep, shaky breath.

 

Mr. Graves mumbled: “Will you stop that.”

Credence looked down, shrinking into himself. There was darkness seeping out of him, flowing in twisting jerks into Mr. Graves’ direction, where an answering blackness was oozing out over the rough blanket.

Credence swallowed and tried to reign it in, but his sudden fear just made the darkness stronger. He’d been there before. Terror fed the miasma just as much as fury did, he knew.

Mr. Graves waved one lazy hand and mumbled: “Oh come here.”

Credence stood and slowly stepped closer. His hands went to his belt automatically. Ma’s punishments had fed the fury, yes, but the simple pain of them had sometimes also helped controlling it.

Mr. Graves waved him closer. Credence leaned down. Mr. Graves grabbed his neck and gently pulled at him. It was a very slow, awkward little dance until Credence finally understood where Mr. Graves wanted him:  
Laid out along his side, his head on Mr. Graves broad shoulder, one hand on his chest.

Credence was trembling all over, his heart beating frantically, and he had trouble breathing. He could feel the compact form of the man, the heat he emanated. 

And then Mr. Graves snorted, lowered his face a little, until every breath caressed the top of Credence’ head. The man’s arm went along Credence’ back, and his large, warm hand came to rest on Credence’ hip.

“Better”, Mr. Graves mumbled.

 

Credence felt like a man in a desert, who’d just jumped into a well of clear, cool water. He wanted to drink all of this in, to crawl even closer to Mr. Graves, to disappear in this embrace.

Mr. Graves whispered: “Try to stay awake, if you can. I need to sleep, and one of us should have an ear open.”

Credence nodded jerkily. There was no way he’d sleep like this. And now he even had a purpose. Keeping Mr. Graves’ sleep safe.

Credence felt taller and stronger than ever before in his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come perv with me on [tumblr](http://fanfuchs.tumblr.com/) ! :D


	5. Tools

Percival had organized more food for the boy, and a few school books for him to work through. Credence had orders to take a leisurely bath, brush his teeth, and learn as much from the books as was possible without a wand to practice with.

Wary of apparating without a wand, now that he actually remembered the risks, Percival walked to the Woolworth building. There was a light drizzle, light enough that Percival could risk repelling it without having any no-maj noticing.

 

Credence was smarter than Percival had actually thought him to be. It made sense: For a wizard this powerful to survive and hide as long as he had… unheard of. To live under such a woman - ah, careful, this was one of Grindelwald’s memories. But still. To come out of that kind of home with a mind more or less intact, of course he would be whip-smart.

And, Morgaine’s tits, the boy was beautiful.

Grindelwald had chosen Percival very well: Not only did he have a position Grindelwald would want, he also had no family or friends who’d notice any changes, since he’d always been married to his job. And his sexual orientation matched Grindelwald’s, so there was little chance of Grindelwald having to fake interest in any women.

Percival remembered keenly how good it had felt, how special he thought their connection to be, when Grindelwald had carefully inched closer to that topic:  
Of course, there was the oppression of the statute of secrecy, and the smarting ignorance of the simple fact that wizards were superior to no-majs.  
But there were other such oppressions in the world, were even equal footing was denied to anything and anyone deviating from the mediocre standard.

They’d debated a few European movements, some wizarding, some no-maj, that were trying to right such wrongs, and with all their good intentions, went into horribly wrong directions.  
The British initiative to elevate several magical species into personhood, what was their name, such an inane little club.  
And the German no-maj national socialists that postulated a superiority based on skin color - preposterous - and further vilified disabled, Jewish and homosexual people.

No-majs had always had a sixth sense. They might not be able to see magic clearly, but they knew when it was around them. Of course they would also feel the imbalance around them.  
The wrong people were in charge, and even the no-majs knew it.

They were already looking for their superiors to guide them, to lead them, but they were blindly grasping for straws, and evil powers usurped their needs.

But Grindelwald hadn’t necessarily shared that view. He’d just used the topic of oppression to inch closer to the topic of homosexuality...

It was a hard blow that Grindelwald had betrayed Percival like this. He’d thought the man a brilliant leader and politician, and it turned out, he was simply an insane egomaniac.  
Well, in Percival’s defense, those two kinds of people were difficult to tell apart.

Percival had to swallow some bile when he thought about how he’d actually contemplated friendship, just on the basis of both of them sharing not only views - or so he’d thought - but also specific tastes.

 

And Grindelwald had found the most powerful wizard ever, and only seen a pretty thing to twist around his finger.  
Percival wondered if Grindelwald had ever touched Credence. He doubted it. The boy was too shy and touch-starved still. And who knew, maybe Grindelwald had lied about his sexuality as well.

Percival concentrated and tried to remember the time before the rain, outside of the cage. Had Grindelwald known that Credence was the obscurial? He was tempted to say no. But then, why had he said that throwing the boy aside had been a test?

Ironically, it was the part of his training that was meant to enable him to withstand interrogation and torture, which helped him untangling this now.

He remembered being surprised. Delighted, yes, but also utterly surprised at Credence being the obscurial. That surprise belonged to Grindelwald.  
Laughing gently at Credence and telling him that this had been a test, that he’d trusted the boy with his life - this was part of the hollow mask powered by the obscurus' power, and he’d said it because Credence had wanted that to be true.

 

Percival’s long strides slowed down.  
Damn, the boy was smart. And dangerous. He’d wrought a copy of a copy out of thin air, to be as much of a full man as possible, and to act in ways, to say things that Credence longed for - possibly not consciously at all.

Well for now, the boy thought Percival another victim of his own abuser, and it was unbelievably easy to bind the boy tighter.

If it truly was Credence’ obscurus which enabled Percival to even walk right now, if he was indeed borrowing enormous power from the boy to fill the gaps Grindelwald had torn into him, he needed to keep the boy close, and under his control.

Also, Credence was beautiful - oh, those dark eyes, oh, this sharp jaw, these soft lips, and the long, lean form of him… He was incredibly smart, brilliant even, and who knew what he’d be capable of once he actually knew what he was doing...  
He was dangerous, more dangerous than anything Percival had ever faced… which was anything but an unattractive feature.  
And he was his.

With a deep breath, Percival walked faster again. As he was closing in on the MACUSA, he lifted his hands once more to signal surrender.

 

 

“Tina, where is Grindelwald.”

“I’m not allowed to tell you. You’re not cleared yet!”

Percival sighed, then nodded. He was sitting in his shirtsleeves on an examination table in the MACUSA’s own medic ward.  
Several mediwitches prodded him with this spell and that, making notes and lifting their eyebrows.

“How come you’re cleared to interrogate at this level anyway”, Percival asked. Then, teasingly: “Did you climb the ladder in my absence?”

Tina leaned against the table. “I attacked a no-maj and got suspended, actually.”

Percival blinked at her, then laughed. “Tina!”

“I know, I know!” She laughed a little as well. Then she turned serious again. “But then no one would listen to what I had to say, while following Gr- Grindelwald blindly, and in the end, I had been the only one following the right trail. So I got promoted.”

Percival frowned at her, calculating the odds. “They didn’t.”

“Yeah they did.”

“They made _you_ director?!”

“Interims director. And hey, I’m not a total fool!”

“No I know, I don’t chose stupid people to mentor personally. But you have far too few years under your belt.”

“I know. But you were still missing, and there were doubts that Grindelwald could have fooled the whole MACUSA like this without help, so I was the safe bet.”

Percival nodded, then said: “This is important: Grindelwald whined to me about the lack of support. He tried to recruit, but couldn’t get through to a single of our men and women. So no, we have no traitors.”

Tina’s relief was epic. “Oh thank Merlin. You’re sure?!”

Percival nodded, then snorted, looking at her without hiding his fondness.  
“So, how do you like the job.”

“Dyer’s curse it’s horrible!”

They shared a laugh, although Percival took careful note of the sliver of anger that he had to push down.

The mediwitch heading the examination said gently:  
“There is an incredible amount of recently healed damage. This… wasn’t there when we last examined you.”

Percival frowned a little. “Are you sure? I was still under Grindelwald’s spells.”

Tina said: “He didn’t even register as a human being, right?”

The mediwitch nodded, and huffed an annoyed sigh. “Our results were completely off the chart.”

Percival really wanted those results. They had medically examined a being made from pure obscurus power. Merlin, what an insight.

Tina asked gently: “Do you know which spells you were under?”

“No, just the effects. I couldn’t think straight, I didn’t remember much, and I needed to go home. I’m not even sure how I managed to get to the MACUSA before giving in to that.”

“We searched your apartment, several times. There was nothing.”

Anger to swallow down again. He’d trained them better than that. But then, it had been very well hidden, and he’d only found it because he’d been pulled to… his own self, he supposed…

“Well, there was a surprise waiting for me, that I can tell you.”

“We saw the destruction it caused. It… looked familiar.”

“I just apparated the hell out of there. Which didn’t help my exhaustion.”

Tina nodded thoughtfully.

 

The mediwitch had exchanged notes with the others from her team. She said:  
“Exhaustion is correct, also, a bit of malnutrition, although astonishingly little, and quite a lot of dark spell residue.”

Percival jumped off the table and put on his jacket again. “I’ll get that cleaned up then.”

The mediwitch signed a form, handed it to Tina, who read it quickly and then smiled: “You’re cleared to be briefed, and you’re sentenced to take your accumulated leave days before you’re allowed to take on active duty again.”

Percival threw the mediwitch an unimpressed glance, which the woman had the cheek to answer with a wink. Percival smiled a little and shook his head.  
“Fine. Do I get my wand back?” then he feigned dismay. “Wait, do you know where it is?”

Tina nodded eagerly. “I relieved Grindelwald of it.”

Percival lifted both eyebrows. “That’s my girl!”

Tina flushed and had a giddy little skip in her step as they walked out of the ward.

“We tried to use it to find you, to no avail-”

“Grindelwald _is_ damn powerful.” Percival suspected that sentence would be his go-to explanation for some time to come. “So. Where is he.”

“We had to hand him off to the EAA, their warrant trumped ours.”

The European Auror Association wouldn’t have an easy time determining what to do with him, so he most probably was still in Brussels.

“Oh, good, so we’re rid of him.”

Tina eyed him from the side. “You went to France, personally, to investigate the threat he posed. We’re no less threatened because he’s overseas again.”

“True. But we can’t prosecute him here.”

Tina said: “We’ll need a full report from you, about everything you’ve seen over there, before the duel. Merlin, we have to go through every little thing he’s done since then…”

“Of course. And I’d like to read all your reports on what happened as well.”

“Sure. Shall I get the treats? I happen to have some truly divine leftover cakes.”

“Which reminds me. How’s your sister?”

“Oh, yeah.” Tina opened the door of his office for him, his own wards clearly missing. “About Queenie. Uhm. Turns out, she’s a legilimens!”

“Ah. So she finally registered?”  
Percival walked into his office, threw his coat at the rack and started checking what had changed since the last time he’d been in here.

Tina was still grasping for something to say.  
“You knew?!”

Of course he hadn’t. He would have lit a fire under the Goldstein sisters if he’d known they were hiding something this useful - and this illegal.  
But it couldn’t hurt for Tina to believe him even smarter than he was.  
“Why would she register after all these years?” he asked.

Tina fell into one of his chairs, mind still blown.  
“She, well, there was, Grindelwald…”

Looking up from the papers he’d been shuffling through, Percival lifted an eyebrow. “Full sentences, Goldstein.”

She nodded, and sat up straighter.  
“Grindelwald. You cannot imagine the damage it did to the whole MACUSA to have him hide in plain sight, impersonating you of all people, for _months_. President Picquery pulled all of us together, and not only did it become clear that everyone was under a microscope, and they’d find out eventually anyway… Queenie thought she could help clear people.”

Percival nodded. “That’s why she was there, when you tried to interrogate me.”  
He could see he’d ruffled her feathers. He’d always told her that in law enforcement, there was no ‘trying’, just doing or failing to do.

But Tina just nodded. Good. With her in the right mindset about him again, everything else would be much easier.

 

A knock in the open doorframe, and Abernathy smiled widely at him.  
“Graves! Welcome back!”

Percival cringed. “Please make sure no one get’s the brilliant idea to throw me a surprise party, yes? Tell them I’m exhausted, barely surviving after Grindelwald’s torture, anything.”

Tina bit off a surprised giggle. Abernathy’s smile turned a little sour. Ah, the idiot had already planned one then.  
But when he stepped inside, he came bearing gifts.

“There you go, freshly polished.”

Percival took his wand back, and he could feel the pleased hum of the thing.  
“Thank you for keeping it safe.”

It was so easy to get Abernathy to preen like this. And Tina did a good job at hiding her sigh.

Now to the next act of this play. Percival did a few easy spells, some with incantation, some wordless, and he could feel how perfectly the wand fit. It didn’t mind the shadow over his magical energy. Grindelwald had actually wielded the thing himself - of course he had. His own wand was legendary, and it would have burst his disguise wide open.

So Percival had to purposely botch a few spells. Then he sighed and said: “Tina, would you be so kind and get me a secondary wand license? Something is wrong with this one, but I need a working wand as soon as possible.”

Abernathy said: “Grindelwald used it, do you think it’s still… loyal to him?”

“No, it feels contaminated. We’ll see if I can get it fixed. But until then…”

“Of course”, Tina said.

 

 

Hours later, Percival closed the last report he’d been given on the obscurus incidences, and finished the last baked treat Tina had procured.

 

There had been only one rough spot, when he’d talked to President Picquery. She’d been honestly happy to have him back, but then she’d said something along the lines of Grindelwald at least having had the decency to treat his prisoner right, judging from Percival’s state.

Only the thought of Credence’ safety had kept Percival from going obscurus.

 

Now the whole department was busy going through The Grindelwald Months, as they called them, and preparing a brief for him on the events of that time.

But he already had the two bits of information he’d been looking for. 

Tina wrote very good reports, and she had included the insights of Mr. Scamander, who’d put an obscurus into a stasis bubble. An obscurus cut off from its host, unable to survive for much longer without her.

It smarted Percival a little that she’d believed he would sentence her to death like that. But then, Grindelwald had probably carefully escalated his behavior and statements over the whole period of time.

So it was possible to do that, separating the obscurus from the host. And it would dissipate at the host’s death.  
Percival had planned to keep the boy happy and safe anyway, but apparently, his own life depended on it.

And then this: Credence had attacked Grindelwald over and over again, overpowering him to the point where only Scamander’s and Tina’s influence had saved the wizard.  
Tina had described the obscurus’ attacks as attempts to annihilate, but also as a clawing and tearing.

And Percival remembered that.

He leaned back in his large leather chair and closed his eyes. He remembered the affront of Graves’ being taken away. He remembered the fury and hate of being betrayed like this, of being stolen from. The sheer desperation of looming loneliness.  
Memories, thoughts and feelings that belonged firmly to the obscurus.

Credence had felt as if the only thing that ever had given him hope had been stolen from him, and his furious possessiveness had torn into Grindelwald, just like Grindelwald had torn into the original Graves for pieces he needed at some point or other.

Percival stared at the ceiling. Wonderful. He had an explanation for possessing some of Grindelwald’s memories: Credence had stolen them from the wizard to recreate the Mr. Graves he couldn’t bear losing.

 

So right now, sitting here, he consisted of:  
His own former self, a fragmentary shell, burdened with physical and mental trauma that only the power of the obscurus kept at bay.  
Said obscurus, which originally belonged to a young man, who’d been oppressed so cruelly and groomed so expertly that it was questionable if he’d ever be able to grow into his own full potential. This part was formed after the image Credence had had of Grindelwald’s impersonation.  
And lastly: Forcefully stolen memories of said Grindelwald’s impersonation.

Truly, Percival was impressed that he was functioning at all.

It was, however, clearer than ever, that he needed to confront Grindelwald and get the stolen parts of himself back. Maybe also all the memories of The Grindelwald Months, so that he’d know the full damage the bastard had brought to Credence, the MACUSA and the wizarding world in general.

 

Percival cracked his upper vertebra and contemplated his chances. The original Percival Graves had been a formidable auror, and Grindelwald had only bested him this easily because he’d lulled him into a false sense of security.

Now however, Percival possessed the power of an actual, 24-year-old obscurus, and Grindelwald himself had been weakened by months of keeping up a disguise and fighting said obscurus.  
He had the resources of the MACUSA, and not only his significant savings - he never spent money on anything, but good clothing now and then - he also had months of back pay.

Time would be of the essence.  
He needed a wand for Credence, and the boy’s sister.


	6. Gifts

“Mr. Graves, doesn’t that mean we could go to the aurors for help?”  
Credence was walking alongside Mr. Graves, marveling at the way the people simply made way for him. Credence himself was sometimes bumping into people, which made him fall back again and again.

“No”, Mr. Graves explained without any impatience. “You’re an obscurial that lived. They’d test you and use you, and they’d restrict your movements, at the very least.”

“You think they’d keep me captured, like a monster.”

“Exactly.”

The good mood Credence had been flowing on, since Mr. Graves had praised him for his hard work with the magical school books, slowly evaporated. So the wizarding world was just as hostile as the no-maj one.

Mr. Graves glanced at him and said: “There’s very little the wizarding world can offer you right now anyway.”

Credence frowned. “But it’s… it’s a little like church though, isn’t it. The… connections, the companionship. Being part of something.”

Mr. Graves sighed.  
“True. But you already missed the most important aspect of growing up in your own world.”

“Going to a wizarding school.”

“Exactly.”

Credence felt a sliver of familiar, helpless rage coil through his chest.

Mr. Graves said: “I liked school, up to a point... I went to Ilvermony. Best wizarding school in the US.”

Credence smiled a little, recognizing the personal tidbit as the gift it was. “There are more than one school?”

“Oh sure, but Ilvermony is the best, and the only one officially recognized by the other countries. Every time someone applies for a position in the MACUSA, who’s graduated one of the native schools, we have to give them a standardized test, so that their authority will be recognized by other law enforcement agencies.”

“Do you think... I could ever pass such a test?”

“Without a doubt. But you’d be wasting your time.”

Credence walked closer to Mr. Graves’ side to avoid bumping into even more people. He stared ahead with a frown of deep thought.  
“What should I do then? With… my life.”

Mr. Graves waved him over to make a left turn. “First we’ll find your sister. Then we take care of Grindelwald. And then… whatever you want to do, really.”

Credence frowned even harder.

They made another turn. There was a tingle in Credence’ spine, and a small pop in his ear. Then they stood in front of a small but very elegant shop: ‘Catlebury’s - fine wand procurement’.

Mr. Graves opened the door for Credence to step through. Credence ducked inside, and in the face of gleaming surfaces and impeccably clean, towering shelves full of white boxes, he had a hard time keeping his hand from flattening down his hair.

After all, Mr. Graves had personally warmed some pomade in his hands to artfully slick it back.

A slender, elderly woman stepped out from behind one of the incredibly high shelves and smiled at them.  
“Ah, Mr. Graves! Fir and Thestral!”  
A wave of her wand turned the sign at the door to show “be right back” to the outside, and shutters went down over the windows. Gleaming white lights took over the job of illuminating the shop.

Mr. Graves said: “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice, Mrs. Catlebury.”

“But of course! And I assure you, discretion is guaranteed.”

Mr. Graves put one hand on Credence’ shoulder. “This young man here needs a first wand.”

“Of course, of course!” The woman stepped closer and looked into Credence’ eyes. “My, my. Alright then.”

She waved to one of the shelves, where a single, long box pushed free and gently floated over.

“Rowan and unicorn hair, 12 inches.” She took it out of the box and told Credence: “Give it a swish, like so-” she demonstrated with an empty hand.

Credence glanced at Mr. Graves, who lifted an eyebrow and leaned against a counter, arms crossed.

Credence really didn’t want to botch this, so the tried to do one of the movements he’d learned about just that morning, and muttered under his breath:  
“Lumos.”

A fizzle of white sparks emanated from the wand.

Mrs. Catlebury laughed gently. “Oh, delightful! Let’s see.” She asked Credence with a gesture to put the wand back, while she summoned another one.

Credence’ heart was still beating heavily.  
He’d produced a flicker of light, with his magic. He’d known he had magic, of course he knew. He’d been actively hiding it for years and years. But somehow, he still hadn’t expected it to work.

Carefully, he placed the wand in its silk paper bedding and closed the graceful box.

“Here you go, young man. Walnut and dragon, 13 inches.”

This time, the sparks were yellow and hissed aggressively. “Oh no, no. My mistake.”

Fir and Kelpie resulted in absolutely nothing.

Mrs. Catlebury started to look a little frazzled. “My stars, what an... interesting case.”

Mr. Graves said: “Madam, might you consider, my friend is still healing from a truly bad injury. But I believe he will actually be the most powerful wizard I have ever met, once he grows into his potential.”

Mrs. Catlebury lifted a disbelieving eyebrow at Mr. Graves, then looked Credence up and down. “Is that so”, she smiled then.  
With a swish of her white apron, she rushed into the far back of the shop.

Credence glanced at Mr. Graves again and took heart at the man’s silent wink.

Coming back, Mrs. Catlebury said: “For a few years now, I’ve been experimenting with something special. Now, what we have here is-”

She lifted the cover of the long box, and with a violent jerk, the wand within ripped into Credence’ right hand. An eerie, blue-green glow emanated from it, the moment it made contact, and Credence felt himself straighten up until his feet were floating just a tiny bit above the floor.

His heart rate slowed down, and a wide smile stretched his lips in an utterly unfamiliar way. Then the glow receded, and his feet met the floor again.

“Ah”, Mrs. Catlebury said, then cleared her throat. “Well.”

Mr. Graves stepped closer and put a hand on Credence’ shoulder.  
“How does it feel”, he asked in a low voice. Credence nodded a little. “Like a puzzle piece you were missing?” Credence gave another slow, definitive nod, then smiled at the floor.

Mr. Graves turned to Mrs. Catlebury, who said, her voice a little feeble: “Pine and basilisk tongue, 13.5 inches, very flexible.”

Credence couldn’t resist, he made the swishy gesture and whispered: “Lumos.”

Both Mr. Graves and Mrs. Catlebury immediately, on pure instinct, lifted their arms over their eyes and turned away.

Credence closed his eyes just a little too late. The light had been quickly gone again, but it had burned so bright, harsh red sparks still flickered in front of him, and his ears were ringing.

Mrs. Catlebury retreated behind the counter, and Mr. Graves cheerfully went to pay her with a thick bundle of emerald green bills.

Credence couldn’t believe his luck. He was a wizard. He truly was. And he was talented.  
He did not mind at all the way Mrs. Catlebury kept her distance and him directly in sight for the rest of their encounter. She was wary of him now, like he was a force to be reckoned with.

When they went back out on the streets, Mr. Graves seemed content, but Credence was floating on an unprecedented high. He stroked his hair back with his hand, then touched his side to feel his wand resting in his new holster under the jacket at his hip.

He hadn’t yet closed his long coat again, which was cut not unlike the one Mr. Graves wore himself, and now billowed a little. His boot steps made the same sound as Mr. Graves’ did, their long strides matching.

When Credence noticed the people parted for both of them now, a laugh broke free.

Mr. Graves put an arm over Credence’ shoulder and said:  
“Remember how you feel right now, Credence. It will get harder again, and soon. But right now, right here, you claimed nothing but your birthright.”

Credence nodded and grinned at Mr. Graves, who, Credence’ heart did another jump, smiled back.  
Then Mr. Graves pulled him into a side alley, crowded him against a wall and for one eternal moment, just breathed close to Credence’ ear.

For a second Credence thought that Mr. Graves had seen someone or sensed something and made them hide because of that.  
But then Mr. Graves turned Credence’ head towards him with one cold hand at his jaw, and kissed him.

To Credence it felt as if the rest of the world around them disappeared in a whirl, the way Mr. Graves had done so often before. He had no idea what to do with his hands, while Mr. Graves was still pressing his lips against Credence’.  
Then Mr. Graves opened his mouth a little and licked at Credence’ lips. Credence felt himself jerk back, but there was a wall at his back, and then there was lewd wetness, and liquid heat collecting in his loins, and he pressed himself against Mr. Graves, grabbed at him, and licked back, and his knees were slowly giving out.

Mr. Graves guided his slow descent to the ground, until he was kneeling between the man and the wall, his cheek gently rubbing against the hard bulge at Mr. Graves’ crotch. His eyes fluttered shut.

“Fuck”, whispered Mr. Graves. His hand caressed Credence’ face. “Do you have any idea what you look like?”

Credence smiled up at him and slowly opened the man’s fly.

Mr. Graves’ hand jumped to his wrist to stop him.  
“Did Grindelwald show you this?”

“No.” Credence glanced up again. “But one can’t slink through the shadows for this long without… seeing things.”

Mr. Graves let go and leaned his lower arm against the brick wall. The other hand went back to Credence’ jaw.

Credence had just seen this act happen once, and from a distance. Credence gently brought Mr. Graves’ erection out into the air, licked his lips and then, experimentally, the long, thick shaft of it.

He kissed it and glanced up again.

Mr. Graves’ dark gaze was fully focused on Credence, his lips were parted. Mr. Graves’ thumb stroked the line of Credence’ jaw.

Encouraged, Credence tried closing his lips around the head, then getting more and more of the shaft into his mouth. His teeth grazed the top of it for a second, and Mr. Graves hissed.

Credence figured out how to cover his teeth with his lip, then had to swallow accumulating spit, which also made him suck at Mr. Graves. He could feel the man’s whole body jerking forward just a fraction.

Credence glanced up again, then pressed his tongue against the underside of Mr. Graves’ erection, closed his eyes and tried to swallow down even more of him.  
His throat protested a little, but Credence’ had practice swallowing down food that tasted very, very off, so he acknowledged his gag reflex in passing, then swallowed spit again, sucking hard.

Mr. Graves cursed, his voice rough, and a hard thrill flashed through Credence, down to his own trapped cock. It wasn’t erect anymore, he had to concentrate too much on making Mr. Graves feel good.  
Mr. Graves carefully kept his head in place, pulled himself out and pushed in again, very slowly.

Credence kept his eyes closed and tried to follow the movement, help the pistoning flow of it. Instead, he hit his head against the wall behind him. Credence winced but took care not to hurt Mr. Graves.

Mr. Graves gently caressed the back of his head in apology, then guided him to lean against the wall, and controlled the movement alone.

Credence concentrated on keeping his throat open, pressing his tongue up and swallowing again and again.

The more Mr. Graves’ breathing grew rougher and strained, the more the man cursed again and again, the harder Credence’ cock became.

Further encouraged, Credence tried moving his tongue a little, fluttering it against the erection. Mr. Graves pressed out a truly filthy curse, gripped Credence’ hair in a hard but carefully painless grip, then moved harder and faster.

Credence had seen something like that, too: A man taking a whore he’d bend over a garbage can. The thought pierced him and made his abs contract in another sudden flash of hot arousal: Mr. Graves was fucking his face.

There was a ringing in Credence’ ears, and though his throat slowly turned quite a bit sore, the lewd sounds, animalistic movement and his own position - helpless, yes, but he simply didn’t have to decide anything, just do his best with what was happening - it all spiraled through and around Credence in wave after wave of incredible prurience.

Mr. Graves held him even harder, jerked helplessly a few times, then bore deep into Credence’ throat and spilled there, the stuff making him choke at last.

Carefully, he pulled out, his thumb going over Credence’ defiled lower lip.  
Credence looked up again, breathing hard, his eyes watering.

Mr. Graves brought his clothes in order again, then pulled Credence up. He was still leaning against the wall, his knees weak. Mr. Graves stared at him, then kissed him violently. Credence simply let it happen, elated. He felt Mr. Graves taste himself in his mouth, and the man’s hard body pressed against him.

Credence faintly grabbed for him.  
Mr. Graves pulled his hair again, his eyes holding Credence’ blurred vision. Then his other hand pressed against Credence’ painfully hard erection and massaged him through his trousers, hard and rough.

Credence’ moan quickly turned into a whine. He trembled, trapped between wall and man, then hit his head against the wall again when his orgasm tore through him, making his spine bow.

Mr. Graves held him up, pressing him into a tight embrace. Credence could feel him suck at his throat, perfectly, painfully hard.  
Credence felt like he’d faint any moment.

With a swoosh and a swirl of reality around them, Mr. Graves apparated them home.


	7. Nurturing the flame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> " _Maybe this was the direct way down to hell, but then, they were wizards, devil’s people anyway, and maybe they belonged there, and maybe hell was a place that was just wonderful for its designated denizens._ "

Credence didn’t sit down as Graves had offered him, choosing instead to look at the books in Graves’ shelves.

The man was prowling his apartment like a large, very irritated cat, searching for something. Credence could hear a crash of something being thrown around now and again, cupboard doors being slammed, or the low rumble of curses.

They’d moved out of the hotel room to Mr. Graves’ apartment, recently cleared by the MACUSA. Mr. Graves wanted to pack for their trip to Europe, as well as do some magical preparations, which Credence was looking forward to with the tightly coiled giddy disbelief which hadn’t left him since he’d created a spark with the Lumos spell.

Now he found himself touching his hip to feel for his own wand again and again.

 

Mr. Graves stomped into the living room and started to go through a chest of drawers there.

“Did… Grindelwald steal stuff?” Credence asked in a low, careful voice.

 

Mr. Graves sounded very annoyed, but explained nonetheless: “No idea. But my aurors certainly confiscated far more than they needed to. And then!”  
He suddenly straightened up and showed Credence a small vial on a necklace, faceted and shimmering prettily in the afternoon light that came through the windows.  
“They definitely should have taken this, it’s highly illegal and clearly dark! I personally taught them the detection spell for this kind of artifact!”

Credence came closer and leaned forward to take a closer look. His hands were clasped at his back. Mr. Graves had already taught him the first rule of handling dark artifacts: Don’t fucking touch mindlessly.  
“What was Grindelwald using it for?”

“Nothing, judging by the dust he never cleaned away.”  
Mr. Graves huffed a breath. “And good thing, too. I’d have no idea how to clean his residue off without destroying the original spellwork.”

“Oh. It’s yours then.”

“Yes, and we’ll need it. Here, you can take it. Actually, it might be a good idea for you to hold it for a while, let it get used to you.”

Credence took it with a wary glance for Mr. Graves, but the man had already turned away to check a cupboard in the hallway.

Mr. Graves had told him not to follow him around, so Credence turned back to the bookshelves.  
There were just so many!  
“Do all wizards have that many books?” he called out.

“Probably, but not on those topics”, Mr. Graves called back from the other room, then cursed in a lower voice again.

“Oh!” Credence whispered. Then he pulled out a book and called back to Mr. Graves: “The Malleus Maleficarum! I know that one! Ma had us read it!”

He could hear Mr. Graves grumble: “Of course she did.” Then, louder: “Aha!”

 

He came back to the living room, brandishing a small flask with a greyish goo inside. Mr. Graves smiled: “Polyjuice essence. My own juice stash is gone, but Grindelwald must have used tons of this, the good stuff. All the hidden coat rack shelves are full of these.”

Credence frowned. “If this belonged to Grindelwald, shouldn’t the aurors have taken it as well?”

“Well, it’s benign in itself, and I am licenced to use polyjuice, so they probably thought it might be nice to leave it here for me.”

 

He waved for Credence to follow him to the kitchen.  
They spread a map of New York on the table. Then Mr. Graves gestured for Credence to give him the pendant.  
When Credence handed it over, Mr. Graves kept hold of Credence’ wrist, and with a flick of his wrist cut into Credence hand.

Credence didn’t flinch, he didn’t make a sound, he simply lowered his gaze and slowly, with full concentration recited Leviticus in his mind: _...and the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, to go a whoring after them, I will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people..._

Mr. Graves filled three drops of Credence’ blood into the little vial, then healed Credence’ cut with another careful gesture.

 

Credence’ head was swimming. He was suddenly very, very tired, and he could feel his heartbeat. It wasn’t that much quicker than before, he didn’t think. But he could feel his own blood pound through his fingers and heart and lips and ears.

Mr. Graves sat down and asked:  
“You’re not related to your sister by blood, correct?”

Credence nodded, still staring at the floor.

“But you do think of her as your sister, yes?”

Credence nodded again.

“Hmm. That should suffice. Credence?”

Credence glanced up without lifting his head. Mr. Graves had lifted both eyebrows and was handing him the pendulum.

“Sit down. Think of her, and let it hang freely over the city.”

Credence sat, his movements as fast as he could make his sluggish muscles move, which was still very slow.

Mr. Graves sighed:  
“Blood magic really isn’t all that dark, don’t worry.”

Credence nodded, then let the pendulum hang over the map.

“Hmm. Are you concentrating on your sister?”

He hadn’t been, but now he tried to scrounge up some concentration through the fog. Modesty. Right. He nodded once more.

“Well then, swing it around a little bit and see if it wants to stick to a specific area.”

Nothing special happened at all. Credence slowly blinked at the map. Modesty.

After a few long moments Mr. Graves said in a low, gentle voice:  
“What’s wrong, Credence.”

“Nothing, Sir”, was Credence’ immediate answer.

He didn’t look up to check how Mr. Graves was looking at him, but he could feel his piercing gaze.

Then Mr. Graves said: “I should have warned you about the cut. I apologize.”

 

Credence looked up.

Mr. Graves was looking at him with faint regret, and a strange sadness.  
“Credence, your magic went dormant just now. Understandably, suddenly being hurt spooked you. I’m sorry. Now you need to tease it back out again.”

Credence swallowed. Then took a shaky breath.  
“How?”

“Think about when we walked out of Castelbury’s. Remember? You’re a wizard. Feel like one.”

Credence closed his eyes. It was easy to find, the feeling Mr. Graves meant.  
He clenched his jaw, stared at the map and slowly moved the pendulum over it.  
He whispered: “Modesty. Where’s Modesty.”

 

The pendulum went to hover over Battery Park, pulling Credence’ hand that way.  
With an adjustment of his arm, the pendulum could swing to one specific corner. Credence smiled.

“Very good”, Mr. Graves said. “She’s not moving. Let’s go!”

 

 

Modesty was sitting on a park bench, legs dangling, eating a roll. Her dress was very dirty, and instead of a coat, she was wearing a threadbare blanket over her shoulders.  
She looked angry, before she saw them approach.

She noticed them coming directly towards her from quite a distance. When she looked up and recognized them, her eyes turned wide and she jumped off the bench to run away immediately.

A wave of Mr. Graves’ hand pulled her towards them instead.

She took a deep breath to scream for help, but Mr. Graves said: “Silencio.”  
No sound emanated from her white face.

All Credence could do was stare helplessly, as Mr. Graves grabbed the back of her neck and crouched down a little.  
“Yes we’re wizards, but no, we’re not going to harm you. You’re cold and hungry and alone, and we’re going to fix that. Understood?”

Modesty was shaking and crying, her wide eyes twitching to Credence, who tried nodding faintly. 

They’d done that, before. Giving each other nearly imperceptible nods or headshakes if they knew more than the other. When Ma was asking one of her trap questions, or Chastity was in one of her rants.

Mr. Graves whispered a spell, and Modesty stopped shivering so hard.

Credence had never seen her this dirty.

Mr. Graves shook her gently and asked again: “Do you understand? Witches, yes, evil no. Okay?”

Modesty nodded, but her eyes were on Credence, and filled with terror.

Mr. Graves stood up and waved his hand in her direction. “Let’s get you something to eat, something to wear, and then we’ll talk, alright?”

Modesty pointed to Credence and said: “He killed Ma and Chastity. And he attacked you.”

“Yes. All deserved, wouldn’t you say?”

Mr. Graves glanced at Credence. Credence stared back, frozen.

Modesty whispered loudly: “He’s a monster.”

“No, he’s just a wizard who had bad things done to him.” Mr. Graves looked down at Modesty and asked: “Wouldn’t it be good if everyone could fight back like that? And didn’t Credence try very hard for a very long time not to harm anyone, not even when he was being harmed?”

Modesty frowned at them both.  
Credence shakily extended a hand to her. She looked at him for a long moment, then she took it.

 

 

When Mr. Graves came back from handing Modesty off to the MACUSA, Credence was already in bed.

 

He’d packed away the hair they’d cut off Modesty’s head, and then, carefully, he’d trimmed his own hair using his wand, the way Mr. Graves had done for Modesty. There hadn’t been much he could do to ease the harshness of his own haircut, and it ended up even shorter than before, but he thought that in the end, he looked less like a freak and more like an actual adult man.

He’d put away the leftovers from the chicken they’d had with Modesty. His own tummy was still pleasantly filled, and he’d smiled a little at the memory of Modesty’s happy smile and red cheeks.

Then he’d taken a bath as Mr. Graves had advised him to do - while Mr. Graves had a bathtub in his own apartment, they wouldn’t have the same luxury on the ship.

Finally, he’d put on one of Mr. Graves’ pajamas, and then he’d gone to bed with one of Mr. Graves’ books on dark magic.

He hadn’t been able to concentrate on a single sentence.

 

Mr. Graves only had one bed. 

It was large, probably meant for a married couple, but still. They would sleep in the same bed tonight.

 

His heart leapt into his throat when Credence heard Mr. Graves’ key turn in the lock, and the mumble of the wizard to get recognized by the MACUSA security wards.

There was an incredibly powerful incongruity between what Credence knew of the world and his place in it, and his current reality.  
He was a wizard. People avoided him on the streets, swerved around where he was going. Mr. Graves was going to take him to Europe, to try and catch a villain. Mr. Graves had touched him and kissed him and was now _coming home to him_ to… to _get into bed with him_... and this was just unfathomable.

 

Mr. Graves had taken off his boots, coat and jacket in the hallway and came into the bedroom, already undoing his cuff links.

“Modesty’s going to be fine. Tina promised to find her a good home, and they swallowed the story of her just stumbling into my path, recognizing me and screaming at me.”  
Mr. Graves lifted an eyebrow at Credence. “Your sister is a skilled little liar.”

Credence watched Mr. Graves take off his vest and belt with wide eyes. He cleared his throat and asked:  
“Are they going to take her memories?”

“No, it’s far too late for a clean and safe obliviation. They’ll simply tell her new parents she’s fanciful. You know: Has an active imagination. They’ll dismiss her stories out of hand, if she ever tells them anything anyway.”

Credence nodded and tried swallowing with a suddenly very dry throat. Mr. Graves was unbuttoning his shirt, watching Credence with a thoughtful expression.  
He was wearing an undershirt beneath it, but when he discarded the outer layer, his arms were left naked. They were darker than Credence’ skin, thick with muscles, and dusted with dark hairs on the lower arms.

Credence’ lips fell open slightly.

 

Mr. Graves was still talking, some grumble about the failure of his aurors regarding locating Modesty, not to mention obliviating her.

But Credence wasn’t listening anymore. Mr. Graves had pulled his undershirt over his head with a one-handed grab to his neck, leaving his hair mussed and his chest completely naked.

Again a dusting of dark hair, leading in a sharp V down to where a trail of them disappeared under his black trousers.

After a long moment, Credence suddenly noticed the silence. His gaze jerked up to Mr. Graves’ face. 

 

One corner of Mr. Graves’ mouth was lifted in gentle amusement.  
“I said: I like the haircut.”

Credence swallowed drily, utterly transfixed. 

Mr. Graves slowly came closer, crawling onto Credence’ half of the bed, ending up on all fours, above Credence.

Credence’ head was swimming, his ears were ringing, and his heart was beating the way he’d just experienced once, when he’d given himself a horrible sugar rush, eating a whole bag of fudge someone had lost on the streets.

Mr. Graves smiled slightly. It looked dangerous.  
“Take off the top and turn around.”

 

Credence started unbuttoning the pajama top and bit down on his lower lip, trying to figure out what Mr. Graves meant - should he just lay down on his stomach? But then Mr. Graves’ knees would be in the way of Credence’ gangly legs.

Once he’d let the top fall on the floor next to the bed however, Mr. Graves helpfully manhandled him into the correct position: On his stomach, one leg on each side of Mr. Graves’ kneeling form.

Credence also lost the cover of the duvet in the process. His shoulders hunched up until they were hurting, and he was grabbing the sheets below him, pressing his eyes closed.  
He loved being this close to Mr. Graves, was excited about where this might be going, but he really didn’t like the thought of the mess his back probably presented.

Two warm hands came down on his shoulders and fingers pressed into cramped up muscles. Then Mr. Graves was whispering into his ear, his breath warm at Credence’ neck:  
“Relax.”

Credence tried taking a few shaky breaths.

“Relax”, Mr. Graves repeated, a little annoyed. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Credence just tried to keep on breathing.

“Credence. What’s wrong. Tell me.” The order was laced with clear and demanding authority.

“It’s just… scars.”

After a beat, Mr. Graves laughed. “So? My chest is riddled with them. Marks of the survivors, my boy.”

Credence glanced back over his shoulder, baffled that he previously hadn’t noticed any at all. It obviously hadn’t just been that Mr. Graves had been standing too far away, some of his scars were very, very visible. But none were ugly, or in any way changing the play of the muscles under his skin.

Credence swallowed again, his throat no longer dry.

“Sorry.”

Mr. Graves put a hand between Credence’ shoulder blades and mumbled: “Don’t be.”  
He pushed Credence down again, then leaned forward and licked at his neck.

Credence couldn’t help a full-body jerk.

“Yeah”, Mr. Graves whispered. “I noticed. Very sensitive area.”  
He slowly, lasciviously licked at Credence’ neck, which send sparks up to his scalp and down to his cock.

Credence whispered: “Oh God.”

Mr. Graves laughed a little. Then he asked:  
“So, Credence. What are your thoughts on sodomy.”

Credence gasped, clawing helplessly at the sheets. A thrill of forbidden, horrible excitement went through him, but also something bordering on terror.

Mr. Graves gnawed at the muscle leading from Credence’ throat to his shoulders.  
“Because I want to sodomize you very badly, Credence”, he mumbled.  
One of his hands went up into Credence’ shorter hair, pulling a little.  
“Do you understand?”

Credence nodded, his head pulled back, his mouth hanging open. “Oh God, yes.”

“Good boy.” Mr. Graves let go of his hair, then sucked open-mouthed at Credence’ neck again.  
He licked down his spine, his saliva hot on Credence’ skin.

Credence was gasping for every breath. He had to lift his hips a little to stop crushing his erection at a very uncomfortable angle.

Mr. Graves laughed darkly at that and said: “Greedy.” It was admonishing as well as encouraging.

So when Mr. Graves licked down even lower and started pulling Credence’ loose pajama pants down, Credence lifted his hips again.

Mr. Graves seemed to be experienced in how to rid a boy under him off his pants; at least Credence was naked in no time. Then two warm, dry hands grabbed Credence’ buttocks and squeezed.

 

Maybe this was the direct way down to hell, but then, they were wizards, devil’s people anyway, and maybe they belonged there, and maybe hell was a place that was just wonderful for its designated denizens.

 

Mr. Graves mumbled a spell; Credence could feel it fizzle down between his cheeks and into him.  
Then the man pulled his cheeks apart and licked him. _There._

Credence yelped. Mr. Graves laughed a little, pulled harder and licked and sucked and bit with even more gusto. Credence found himself spreading his legs apart as far as he could. His spine bend as he threw back his head, panting open-mouthed.

Mr. Graves mumbled low praises and encouragements: “So good for me. Such a tight little hole. Yeah, spread them wider. Such a pretty little thing.”

At this point, Credence’ thoughts melted into an incoherent, steady stream of bliss.  
The one thing that stayed brightly clear to him was that the filthiness of this, the sheer wickedness of every single detail about this act heightened Credence’ euphoria, strengthened it with the sharp taste of vengeful satisfaction.

Another mumbled spell, and suddenly the already spread-out wetness had a new, slippery quality. Mr. Graves spread Credence’ cheeks apart again, then said:  
“Hold this for me.”

Credence couldn’t help drooling onto the sheet under the cheek he was lying on, as he moved both hands back to pull himself apart, utterly enjoying the wantonness of this.

Mr. Graves let a finger circle Credence’ hole. Credence’ hips were still slightly lifted, which was the only reason he hadn’t spilled yet - his erection was touching nothing but air.

The finger breached him, and Credence sobbed in a breath, pressing his eyes shut again.

A warm hand settled on the small of his back, and Mr. Graves stopped any movement.  
“Credence?”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, oh God, please don’t stop…” Credence fell into a steady stream of begging and apologizing.

Mr. Graves pushed his finger deeper inside, his rough knuckles still tangible, even through the slick. Then he moved it around, pulling at Credence’ hole this way and that, explaining in a low voice that they needed to stretch the muscle. “We want my thick cock to fit into you, don’t we.”

That finally stopped Credence’ babbled pleas, as his mouth fell open and he stared into nothing again.

The hand on the small of his back pushed him down. The moment his erection made contact with the sheets, Credence’ hips started moving of their own volition, but Mr. Graves pushed down harder.  
“Stop moving.”

Credence had to fight for stillness, but Mr. Graves noticed how hard it was to keep still, and he said: “Good boy.”

Then he added another finger, which stretched Credence to the brink of pain. Credence gasped for breath again, and then felt the coil of hunger in his loins suddenly give, and liquid heat spread up to his scalp, down into his toes, and his cock spilled into the sheets.

“Hmm, such a greedy boy”, Mr. Graves admonished and praised. 

His efforts to stretch Credence’ hole didn’t even pause, though, as if Credence’ orgasm was purely circumstantial.  
For some reason, this felt like absolution, and the last little bit of tension between Credence’ shoulderblades gave way. He melted into the mattress, as Mr. Graves spelled more slippery stuff between his cheeks - the slick was already running down Credence’ balls - and worked at Credence’ hole to fit in three fingers.

It was a harsh stretch. The brink of pain was close-by the whole time, but its threshold never passed.

Mr. Graves moved his fingers around, pushing all three of them as deep as possible.

Credence blinked lazily into nothing, licking his open lips thoughtlessly, holding himself open for this.

Then Mr. Graves withdrew his hand, straightened up and opened his fly. The thick, hot head of his cock was pushing against Credence’ hole. All Credence could do was let his hands try to get a better grip, constantly slipping, to pull his cheeks apart, and lift his hips a little, ah, greedily.

Then Mr. Graves pushed in. He went slow, and he’d prepared Credence well. The burn of the stretch was back of course, but much more important was the way Mr. Graves’ cock pressed against a center of molten heat inside of Credence.

Mr. Graves grabbed Credence’ wrists and crossed them at the small of his back, pulled up his hips and pushed in even deeper. The way he grasped Credence’ hands made Credence unable to pull his arms away, but he was also holding Credence’ hands.

The other hand went to his hip, holding him steady, while he slowly, slowly started moving. A low rumble of praise fell from his lips again, which sometimes sounded like insults, but were clearly praise and encouragement.  
“Such a greedy little cockslut”, Mr. Graves crooned. “Such a wanton, pretty toy for me.”

Credence felt a huge smile spread his open lips. His own cock was getting hard again, which was deliciously uncomfortable.

 

Mr. Graves’ movements grew steadily faster and harder, until he had to let go of Credence’ hands to grab his shoulder and pull him back into the thrusts. Credence held onto his own wrist, and Mr. Graves cursed, then moaned: “Fuck, so good for me…”

Grinning, Credence tried moving his hips into the thrusts, which wasn’t easy, and he didn’t succeed very often, but apparently well enough to make Mr. Graves snarl, pull at his hair, push in hard and deep and then freeze with a long moan.

When he pulled out, Credence could feel additional fluid spilling out of him, and the word ‘sodomized’ flittered through his mind.

 

Mr. Graves threw himself onto the other side of the bed, panting.

Credence slowly brought his arms forward, trying to keep his hips from pushing into the sheets. His shoulders were hurting a little from being bent back that way, but it was pure exertion, and immediately forgotten, melted down into the blissful mixture of sensations.

 

Mr. Graves stared into Credence’ eyes, who was still smiling widely, staring back with wide open eyes and the potential for laughter bubbling deep in his throat.

“Turn around”, Mr. Graves said, once he’d caught his breath.

Doing so made even more fluid spill out of Credence’ hole, and exposed his wet belly and leaking, hard erection.

Mr. Graves made a sound as if presented with a feast. Then he crawled back over Credence. A mumbled spell spread cool slick over Credence’ erection, which in itself made Credence’ eyelids flutter shut and his spine bend.

Then one of the man’s hands went to Credence’ throat, not really choking him, just holding him still with the safe and sure potential of pressing down harder.  
The other hand curled around Credence’ erection, and immediately started massaging him.

Credence felt a high, desperate whine break out of him. His toes were curling, his knees wanted to come up, and Mr. Graves’ fingers played his cock like a musician would expertly fondle an instrument.

This time, orgasm drowned Credence in an all-encompassing wave of heat and bliss and darkness.

 

When Credence came to, Mr. Graves had spread the blankets over them both, and switched off the lights.  
Credence’ cock and belly were cleaned and dry, as were his cheeks, although there still was a bit of a trickle out of his hole.  
Mr. Graves pulled him against his side and muttered:  
“There’s a glass of water on the bedside table.”

Credence nodded against his shoulder. For some reason, he felt like crying.

But then Mr. Graves kissed the top of the head in the darkness, and the unspilled tears subsided, and exhaustion won over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come perv with me on [tumblr](http://fanfuchs.tumblr.com/)! :)


	8. Mastery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Sex helped."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm probably taking liberties with the Atlantic liner, since research started to cut into my writing time. If anyone would like to fact-correct this in any way, I am open to any feedback! :)

It was strange seeing Modesty’s face without the anger, although Credence was clearly unhappy in his disguise.  
At least this time Percival thought he’d done a much better job cutting hair - he knew more about men’s haircuts, and trying to make Modesty look cute after they’d chopped her hair off had given him at least some experience to build on. So when he’d cut the polyjuiced Credence’ hair, and the long tresses fell away into nothing, he’d made him look neat and cute at the same time.

It was still an 8-year-old girl’s body, though. And even with boy’s clothes, Credence wasn’t comfortable at all.

Percival pulled him along. They needed to catch this boat.  
He watched the customs’ people and the boat’s crew react to blond, sulky little Credence wearing Modesty’s face, and mused on the obvious usefulness of children as part of a disguise. No one even looked at Percival’s face for more than a moment.

Having a child hold his hand hadn’t hurt his image at the MACUSA either: Modesty had been clean, her cheeks rosy from the recent chicken feast, and her blue coat, cap and thick winter boots were well-made and made her look very cute indeed. And the cap had hid the horrible haircut.

A hush had precluded them, squeals and whispers had followed them on their way to his department. Percival appreciated that this gave everyone something new to gossip about.

Only Tina hadn’t look thrilled to see them, but then, she was the only one recognizing Modesty, and she’d obviously known that Percival would give her shit for not finding the girl in time for a clean obliviation.

Oh well, at least the girl had played her part well.  
It had taken some convincing, but for all the horrible mistakes Mary Lou Barebone had made in raising her foster children, they grew up smart, and Modesty had understood the need to keep Credence safe.

And Tina, with her strange new obsession with massive amounts of little cakes and pies had won Modesty over much faster and far better than Percival had managed.  
He was positive Tina would make sure the girl found a happy home and therefore had taken Modesty from his mental to do list.

Which left only Grindelwald.

 

When they’d finally closed the door of the small but neat private cabin, Credence asked in the small girl’s voice:  
“Why did it have to be Modesty’s hair.”

“Because for polyjuice to work, the owner of the original hair must still be alive, and we did want to assure her well-being anyway, yes?

Credence nodded, his frown directed to the floor.

“Then why dress me up like a boy?”

“Because I couldn’t very well share a cabin with a girl now, could I.”  
Percival finished warding the place, the gestured to the bunk beds. “Top or bottom?”

Credence glanced up, then smiled a little. “You don’t mind?”

Percival lifted both eyebrows at him and snorted. He unpacked the essentials while Credence climbed onto the top bunk.

“I didn’t think we’d have this much space”, he said from his new burrow up there.

“Don’t forget, you’re not your usual lanky self.”

“Oh, right…”

Credence peered down to him, Modesty’s eyes sharp and hard. “Will I have to stay like this for the whole week?”

“Yes.”

Finally, Modesty’s eyes looked angry. “The whole week.”

Percival straightened up from where he’d put away the empty suitcases.

“I’m not having sex with an 8-year-old girl.”

“Oh my God.” Credence flinched back into his bunk and Percival could hear him curse a few times more. He put a foot on the lower bunk to be able to fold his arms on the upper one and look at the polyjuiced man.

Modesty’s face looked like she was close to puking. Percival smiled toothily. Credence frowned: “Why would you say that.”

“Just checking how horny you are.”

Modesty’s face flushed less and not as easily as Credence’.  
Percival found that he missed the original face already. 

He sighed:  
“We’re casting off soon. You want to go up and see the Statue of Liberty?”  
Percival winced. He’d have to take care not to talk down to Credence even more than usual, just because he looked like a child. He needed to stop thinking of Credence as a child, period. He was 24 years old, and, Mercy Lewis, had certainly proven he’d picked up a bit of, well, life experience, if only from a distance.

Credence frowned, then snarked: “Will I be able to see anything over the railing or will you let me ride on your shoulders.”

Percival gave him a blank expression, then turned around to hide his amused smile.  
“Let’s go.”

 

 

The distant drone and pumping of the huge machine that carried them over the ocean did nothing to help Percival sleep.

When he’d booked passage, he’d simply chosen the same type of ticket he’d used before, not even thinking for a moment that this category of cabin did not come with a window, not even with a small bull’s-eye.

While Credence, not quite turned back from the Modesty disguise yet, had long been asleep already, Percival’s skin had started to crawl, pressure on his chest had grown and grown, and in the end, he’d thrown his coat on again and went out to prowl on the upper decks.

Out here on the ocean, the December air was bitingly cold, and the wind so much harsher than it had been in New York. The night sky was clear however, the stars breathtaking, and the moon showed Percival the vast emptiness, the immense amount of open space he was surrounded by.

 

Percival took deep breaths, drinking in the cold, the fresh and salty air, the moonlight.

 

Very few people were about, although gentlemen were drinking in the upper deck bar, and a few pairs were enjoying the starlight, keeping their distance to each other.

On the starboard side of the upper bow deck, a man was using a notice-me-not charm, and holding something small and glowing in his hands.  
The charm wasn’t badly done, but Percival was trained to immediately notice the kind of mental black spot that kind of charm created.

He walked over to a spot a few strides away, leaned against the railing and surreptitiously took a closer look at the guy.  
Then he looked out over the sea and took a deep breath, letting it out in a long, tired sigh.

 

Tina had sworn to Morgaine and back that Newton Scamander had already left New York, when he’d asked her while he was at the MACUSA with Modesty.  
Percival had known she was hiding something.  
She had a way of nodding while lifting both eyebrows, pressing her lips together, and not meeting his eyes, which was an instant, clear tell.

But she hadn’t been lying per se. Just hiding something. 

And while Percival couldn’t fully trust Grindelwald’s memories in his head, the reason he had asked her in the first place had been that he’d thought he’d recognized the man on the streets just the day before, when he’d left Castlebury’s with Credence.

 

And now Newt Scamander was on the same ship as Percival and Credence, which left Percival only a few ways to go:  
Find some kind of disguise for himself. Or talk to Scamander, but definitely keep Credence from the man. Hope to Molly Dyer that Scamander had never met Modesty, or possibly confine Credence to their quarters. 

But the thought of anyone being confined to a cabin send spasms down Percival’s back. 

And then, keeping the fact that Scamander was on board from Credence felt worse. He’d have to either forbid the boy from seeking out the man - one of the very few good experiences with magic that Credence had had - or lie to him, and maneuver him about with a grade of finesse that seemed excessive.

Or he could lay down their cards, let Credence talk with Scamander, possibly learn something from him. The man _was_ a master magizoologist.  
And he’d kept another obscurus in stasis.

Dyer’s curse. Scamander had tried to calm Credence down, hadn’t he, and made a huge fuss later on, when the aurors had attacked and ostensibly killed Credence, because, or so the report had quoted him, he would have been able to help Credence.

 

Scamander was still concentrating on the silvery glow in his hands, humming a little under his breath.

 

Percival closed his eyes for a moment.  
Why was this a hard choice?

He knew that Credence would benefit from meeting Scamander. They might even learn something about the ongoing obscurus situation.  
Scamander knew that Percival had been impersonated, and he’d been fully prepared to go against the best of the New York aurors, just to help Credence, so the man shouldn’t make any trouble for them.

But there was a twinge in Percival’s gut, which told him to keep Credence secret. He had the hair and the polyjuice potion, and Credence would do as he said, even if he might not like it.

A deep breath. A sharper look at the knot of his own impulses. Then Percival had it: Keeping Credence from Scamander and vice versa wasn’t _his_ impulse.

Percival swallowed and stared out to the silvery moonshine on the black ocean.

He still carried an echo of Grindelwald. Oh, he had to be far better at catching those impulses. The obscurus’ urges were negligible, they were harmless to both of them, and definitely fun.  
But Percival would rather cut out his own liver than follow any of Grindelwald’s inducements.

 

“Good evening, Mr. Scamander”, he said, walking over.

“Oh! Ah!” Scamander nearly lost hold of the glowing flask in his hand, which was topped by a frail, complicated looking mechanism.

“Forgive me, I did not mean to spook you,”

“Ah, Mr. Graves!” Scamander’s eyes were wide, disbelieving and - Percival approved mightily - very wary.

Percival held out his hand. “We haven’t met, but I saw your photo on Tina’s report.”

“Ah, yes, of course.” Scamander closed the flask, then shook Percival’s hand. The way he held himself reminded Percival eerily of Credence: the same way to hide their own considerable height, only Credence looked more cowed while Scamander rather more awkward.

Percival smiled toothily. “I believe President Picquery gave you a deadline to board a ship, ah, three days ago?”

“Yes, quite. And I did!” Scamander’s eyes flickered away from Percival’s, again a strange, slanted echo to Credence. Where the boy looked down most of the time, Scamander looked just past one’s face. “But then there were Kinglies, and I got off again.”

Percival blinked slowly and crossed his arms.

“They are like Billywigs, but much more rare - a sub-species, actually, dormant most of the year, but when they-”

“Escape your suitcase, after you’d just collected all your beasts from all over the city again?”

“Well. Not quite. We never found all of the Billywigs.”  
Scamander’s hesitant smile was crooked, charming, and a touch imploring.

Percival closed his eyes for a second, then said: “I’m off duty. And I’m going to forget I ever heard that.”

“Ah, yes, sir.”

Percival gestured to the flask, and Scamander held it up, smiling a little wider.  
“A lumilux lagena. My mooncalves need real moonlight from time to time.”

“...sure.” Percival frowned at the man. Then he said: “For the record, I have never personally sentenced anyone to death, and I’ve also never breached protocol like that in any other way.”

Scamander nodded, his gaze jumping to some other people at a distance.

 

Percival leaned against the railing.  
“I read you took down Grindelwald, with a, uhm, moth?”

“Swooping evil.”

Percival lifted both eyebrows.

“They’re not. Evil, that is. They are rather prone to swooping.” Scamander smiled his strange, endearing smile again.

“Whatever it’s called, it’s a large what, butterfly? How did that thing defeat Grindelwald?”

“Its spit hardens in under a second.”

Percival stared at Scamander, fascinated.

“Neat, yes?” Scamander smiled. “It spit on his wrists, glueing them to his back, ending in a solid rope for me to pull on.” Scamander put the glowing flask in his coat pocket and pulled out a little, dark cocoon. “I call him Steward.”

Percival leaned forward without quite noticing. “It’s asleep?”

Scamander nodded. “And very devoted when awake, so don’t worry about anyone’s brains.”

Percival’s voice was a little faint. “Why… why would I worry about…”

Scamander cleared his throat. “Would you like to see more of my beasts? I think you might appreciate some of them!”

 

Scamander’s cabin didn’t have a window either, and was even smaller than the one Credence was currently sleeping in. But being in there with another awake person kept the fizzling headache at bay.  
Scamander was still talking about the benefits and uses of beasts, involuntarily painting a very clear picture to Percival why all of the beasts he mentioned had been declared illegal to hunt, possess, train or breed ages ago.

He put his suitcase on the floor, opened it and went inside.

Percival had to swallow down a bout of acute nausea. He crouched down and looked at the steps leading further down into the magical space.

Scamander’s face appeared, both brows lifted inquiringly.

“I’m not going inside of this”, Percival said.

“It’s much larger in here than you might think”, Scamander said. “The moment you step on the ladder, you’re inside of my workshop, and there’s a door - wait, I’ll open it.”

He scuttled off, and Percival felt the corners of his lips twitch. Was that what dangerous creatures experienced, when Scamander lured them somewhere?

Scamander’s face came back, his smile hopeful and inviting. “You _have_ to see the Nundus. They’re majestic!”

Percival sighed, then stepped a foot on the ladder.

 

Scamander made good tea, Percival had to admit. They were sitting at the edge of a savanna installation, both having discarded their jackets, sipping tea.  
Percival had somehow been roped into feeding the Mooncalves, and luring the Nundus away from their young for a moment, so that Scamander could inspect their wellbeing.

It felt suspiciously like a holiday.

He’d also met Stewart the Swooping Evil, who’d attacked on sight, but then proven Scamander’s claims of control over the beast.

Percival was idly daydreaming about equipping every auror in New York with one of those.

 

Scamander asked: “So, Europe, hmm?”

Percival nodded slowly. Then he asked back: “Would you’ve really been able to help Credence?”

Scamander frowned a little, his gaze, openly meeting Percival’s just a moment ago, suddenly flickering away again.

“Yes”, he said.

“Would you have destroyed the obscurus?”

“No, I’d have reunited the obscurial with its power, by healing the rift between the two.”

“How.”

“Why do you call him Credence?”

“Because that’s his name.” But Percival had to smile at the attention to detail the man had. He _had_ mentioned Credence’ name in a very familiar way.

Scamander glanced at Percival’s smile, confused.

Percival sighed. “He survived. He’s on board.”

The way Scamander’s face lit up was the last bit of proof Percival had needed as to his motives. His face fell quickly again though, and he asked:  
“Is he alright?”

“Yes. I don’t think the obscurus is a problem anymore. He still needs some time for the damage my aurors did to heal, but otherwise he’s fine.”

Scamander nodded, gnawing at his lower lip.  
“But you think the obscurus could become a problem again.”

“Well, he has a wand now, and he’s using it, so I doubt it. But it’s always good to know the solution to such a powerful problem.”

“Amphisbaena essence. I thought it could do the trick. Amphisbaena helps heal splinching, as you might know. If reduced to the essential oil, therefore turning its active locus to the magically mental…”

“It might be able to reunite obscurial with the power of the obscurus, without pulling the obscurial apart.”

“Exactly.”

Percival leaned back, a hard knot in his stomach.

 

Credence was of course overjoyed that Percival had changed his stance on the polyjuice. It was even a good opportunity to flex Credence’ magical muscles a little and practice obliviating and confunding spells, so that no no-maj wondered for very long why the small blond boy had turned into a tall dark man overnight.

The news of Scamander’s presence on the ship brought even more light to Credence’ expression. And when he saw the breakfast spread in the dining hall, and got over his awkward timidness at dealing with a waiter, Percival got another glimpse of the self-confident, powerful, happy young wizard Credence should have grown up to be in the first place.

Just like after Castelbury’s, Credence’ stride was longer, his shoulders pulled back and his chin was up. His delicious lips tended to form into an impish, utterly devastating smile, which paired with that cut-glass jaw, those dramatic eyebrows and feline eyes pulled at Percival’s darkest urges.

The sheer natural charisma of the boy whenever he did not actively try to be swallowed up by the floor was so strong that Percival had to strengthen their regular notice-me-not.

 

Credence had agreed with Percival to keep the obscurus secret for now. Not so much because he agreed with Percival’s evaluation of Mr. Scamander, but because he’d trusted Percival to know more about the strategic and legal repercussions of revealing such a fact.

So Percival felt fine letting Credence go down into the suitcase, while he himself went up into the gentlemen’s lounge, commandeered one of the wonderfully plush armchairs, and took a long nap.

 

The three of them developed a bit of a pattern over the week they shared on sea. Percival would sometimes help out with the creatures, but at some point or other, the thought of being inside of a suitcase would crawl up on him, and he had to get out very quickly.

Scamander taught Credence a lot about magical creatures, and Credence simply flourished under his tutelage.

Percival and Scamander also helped Credence practise simple charms, hexes and spells, and the main problem seemed to be that Credence was too powerful to allow for any inattentiveness. In the end, Scamander had to clear a little training area for him, in a cold part of the magical space inside of the suitcase, where apparently the stasis bubble with the other obscurus had previously resided.

The one thing Percival insisted on teaching together was apparition. The restricted space they had on board of a ship was actually quite useful - salt water was a powerful magical restrictor for some spells. He commandeered them the ball room for a few nights for this.

Percival had always been very gifted in apparition. Scamander was capable, if utterly lacking any grace.  
Credence was terrified.

They did side-alongs for a few times to help him get used to the feeling in general. But neither of them was able to answer Credence’ low-voiced questions: What if one didn’t reappear? Where was one going for the split second between disappearing and reappearing?

It wasn’t so much about needing to know how it worked. Credence was terrified of disappearing for good. Had anyone ever come back, but no one had noticed them? he asked.

And Percival knew Credence didn’t like casting notice-me-nots, either.  
He’d been invisible for far too long in his life.

 

Sex helped.  
Percival freely used the boy’s talented mouth and eager little hole, and he made sure to get Credence out of his own head every time.  
Only if he managed to tease and torture and humiliate Credence into a mess of sensations, incoherent and malleable, only then was Credence able to truly give in to pleasure and come.

A single wrong gesture or word could evaporate all the accumulated heat in an instance, and reduce him to a truly humiliated young man, thinking of himself as nothing but a disgusting freak.

For this, Percival had the sure guidance of the obscurus.

Percival didn’t misstep, never passed the thresholds of pain or true mortification, and always, always knew when Credence needed to be pushed or encouraged or wanted to be told how much he was acting like a filthy, wanton little whore.

Getting Credence to melt into Percival’s good little boy toy was the one sure-fire way to eliminate any terror in the man.

The first successful apparition came just an hour after Percival had fucked him hard, made him drool, called him a cockslut and pushed the tips of his thumbs inside Credence’ hole, alongside his own thick cock.

Not that Scamander knew that bit, but there was jubilation and hugs and jumping around - the latter only on Scamander’s part. But Credence was just as happy, judging from his wide, free smile, and the way he ducked into both their hugs.

They went for cake to celebrate the occasion.

 

Percival hung back a little, feeling strangely faint. The feeling had come and gone again and again in the last few days, but never grown worse, so he’d attributed it to the motion of the sea, his general lack of sleep, and his growing unease at being confined to a relatively small vessel.

 

He declined any of the horribly sweet, cream-based confectioneries Credence wolfed down and Scamander destroyed with his fork while holding a little sermon about a species of flightless birds that apparated as well.

Afterwards, Percival tried to sleep a little in one of the first class cabins that he’d found unused and had broken in the day before as well.

He tried not to overthink all of this. Sleep would surely help.

 

But it felt like he hadn’t slept at all, when a wave of pain hit him, followed by a complete loss of his sense of balance and hearing.

He jumped out of bed, pulled his wand and tried to get into a fight-ready position, but his knees gave out. He landed on all fours, and Percival stared in horror and faint awe at his own hands, white and blue, showing signs of malnutrition, frostbite, burns and infected little cuts.

All of this was already healing again. But it had been there. And while the pain in all of his muscles slowly receded, the pressure on his chest grew and grew.

What proof did he even have that any of this was real.

What if Percival had never left the small room in his apartment, what if Grindelwald was just playing another of his mind games.

Memories hammered into him from all sides, instances when Grindelwald had been bored and tried to amuse himself with his prisoner, evenings when the professionality and upstanding morals of Percival’s department had angered Grindelwald so much that he decided to take it out on their head auror.

Percival gasped at the nice afghan rug under him, then surprised himself by vomiting.

Just as the physical harm had receded, so did the memories.

 

Percival struggled for air, wheezing. He fought to get up on his feet again, then stumbled to the ensuite to stare at the mirror. A faint memory of the obscurus looking at itself, and seeing the wrong perspective.  
Now, there were hollow cheeks and dark shadows under feverish eyes. His hair stayed well-cut and no undue stubble appeared, but his skin was visibly changing back from a greenish grey hue to the usual, healthy complexion.

“Mercy Lewis”, Percival whispered.

 

 

When he went back to their original cabin, Credence wasn’t back yet.

Percival sat down on a conjured armchair and watched the last bit of violet recede at the beds of his nails.

Credence came in with a whirl of happiness and started talking immediately.  
“I produced a Patronus! Mr. Scamander said that this was higher magic, and hard to do, but it worked on the first try!

The young man kneeled in front of Percival and put his warm hands on his knees. He smiled up to him, the new, crooked little smile, full of shy adoration and careful, unpractised flirting.  
“You know how it works, right? You have to think of something truly wonderful. I… I thought of you.”

 

With an enormous wave of fury, the impulse to punch his face roared through Percival. No, even better, slap him, hard - much more humiliating and symbolic. Or… Percival took a shaky, deep breath and did not permit himself to think of the wand move that would accompany the cruciatus curse.

A quick frown twitched over Credence’ brow, then he pursed his lips and asked, happy, shy, oh so beautiful: “Shall I show you?”  
Credence stood up, brandishing his wand to demonstrate, and Percival lunged at him.

“NO!”

Credence jerked into a smaller version of himself, even crouching down a little, the highest point of his figure his wrist in Percival’s grip.

“No”, Percival said, trying to calm down. “It’s a powerful spell, and you’re still healing.”

Credence nodded, his eyes lowered.

Percival knew he was looming over him, and he knew that in this instance, Credence did not like that. But Percival did.

The boy was still his, wasn’t he.

Percival let go of Credence and started opening his fly.

Credence glanced up and swallowed.

Percival took a deep, shaky breath, his hands stilled.  
“Tell me no.”

Credence whispered: “...what?”

“Tell me you don’t want to.”

The next glance Credence threw his way was suddenly, surprisingly furious.  
“No.”

“No, what.”

“No, I don’t want to act like I don’t like it.”

Percival lifted both eyebrows, his head swimming a little, and nausea just around the corner.  
“So you want to suck my cock right now?”

“Not… particularly. But…”

Percival crouched down and stared into Credence’ eyes. “But?”

Credence looked away and bit out: “I want even less for you to fuck my face after I asked you not to.”

Percival swallowed. Then he slowly stood up again. He had to make a grab for the wall not to lose his balance.  
“I wanted you to say no so that I wouldn’t.”

Credence still stared to the floor, darkness seeping out of him.  
“But you already knew I didn’t want to.”

Percival nodded, his eyes searching for anything to give him hold.  
“You better leave right now.”

Credence stood, his shoulders hunching up.  
“No.”

Percival huffed a breath - it was supposed to sound mocking, but came out rather hysterical.

Credence snarled:  
“I wouldn’t have done magic without supervision or approval from either of you. I did _well_ , Mr. Scamander said. What did I do?”

“Nothing”, Percival said, faintly.

“What did I do wrong?!”

“Nothing!”

“Then why punish me?!”

The whole room was by now swirling in darkness, none of the walls even visible anymore. Percival gasped for breath, and he knew this, he knew the symptoms: Panic attack.

Credence’ eyes were glazed with white, and his exposed teeth glowed in the growing darkness.

“Tell me!” he demanded, the darkness roaring a dissonant echo to his voice. “I am trying to be good, but all I do is wrong, isn’t it! Because I’m wrong!”

Percival whispered:  
“We have to snap out of this. We’ll sink the ship.”

“WHY WOULD YOU PUNISH ME IF I DID NOTHING WRONG?!”

“Because I wasn’t thinking straight.”

Credence laughed, a horrible, screeching sound in the darkness, which was slowly engulfing them both up to their faces.

“I’m sorry, Credence”, Percival gasped, not getting enough air at all, he was heaving for breaths, and in the far distance of his memories, he could hear an instructor tell them to concentrate on breathing _out_ , not in, but he couldn’t get enough air-

 

Soothing coolness over his brow, and a careful voice saying something about confined spaces and aftereffects of prolonged captivity.

Percival opened his eyes to Scamander’s crooked smile.

“There he is. See? He’s fine.”

Scamander helped Percival up into a sitting position and handed him a glass of water.

They were still inside of the cabin, Credence crouched into the corner by the wash basin, knees pulled to his chest, head on his knees.

Percival cleared his throat.  
“What happened?”

“Credence came to get me, after the both of you had a fight, and you’d fainted.”

“I… fainted.”

“He said you had trouble breathing, and that you’d said you couldn’t think straight.”  
Scamander vanished the washcloth and stood up.  
“I told him that sometimes you have trouble with, ah, restricted spaces, yes?”

Percival nodded a few times, his eyes not leaving Credence.

“Good, well. Will you two be alright?” It was pathetically clear that Scamander did not want to be there while they talked this out.

Percival took a deep breath and asked:  
“Credence?”

Credence glanced up, then nodded at them both.

Scamander immediately fled the scene, in a truly awkward whirl of good luck wishes.

 

Once he was gone, Credence mumbled:  
“I used reparo on the cabin before I ran to him. You said to keep it secret, the obscurus.”

Percival nodded and pressed his eyes closed.  
“I didn’t… nearly hurt you like that because of ‘restricted space’.”  
He waited for Credence to acknowledge that, but instead of any sound encouraging him to talk on, Credence frowned, hard, and his mouth turned down so angrily, it looked like it belonged to a person that was used to commit cruelties.

Percival sat up a little straighter.  
“What.”

“‘Nearly’”, Credence said, then huffed an ugly little laugh. “Oh, you ‘nearly’ hurt me, did you.”

“Mercy Lewis, fine, I’m sorry I hurt you anyway. But for a moment there, I wanted to go even further, yes? And that didn’t happen because-”

“Why then.”

“I believe I still carry an echo of Grindelwald.”

Credence’ gaze came up, finally, and his expression opened a little.  
“What?”

“I… you know he stole some of my memories, so that he could impersonate me better. And I believe I also carry some kind of echo of his. I want my memories back, and I hope… I hope getting them back also gets rid of that residue.”

“Like dark spell residue?” Credence asked, smart boy.

Percival nodded slowly and decided then and there not to actually fight to get the memories of The Grindelwald Months - they did belong to Grindelwald and arguably might worsen the situation.

He let his eyes wander over Credence’ form, still sitting on the floor, but now changing his position to sit cross-legged. The boy- the man deserved better than a violent monster.

Credence eyeballed him right back, then asked: “Are you alright?”

“Usually. But Scamander is right, I do have a little cabin fever.”

“Can I help with that?” The little scoundrel perked right back up, and the impish grin made a comeback, too.

 

Of course, sex helped.

Not half an hour later, Percival had Credence lying on the lower bunk, buck naked, on his back, arms to the sides.

Percival was sitting on the bedside, slowly, methodically rolling the boy’s lubricated nipples between his fingers.  
Credence’ cheeks and chest were flushed, and his cock was getting harder and harder.

The boy was breathing with a little whine at every intake, his eyes glassy and slightly unfocused already.

Percival watched his erection rise, then, with a gesture, performed a wandless, wordless spell that had been handed down from elder horny teenage boys to younger ones for generations: Banishing an erection.

The accumulated hot blood was pushed out of the erection, leaving the cock flaccid, and the loins on fire.

Credence closed his eyes, gasped for breath, and tears started flowing from the corners of his eyes. He still wasn’t complaining, and Percival had done this for the third time now.

When he opened his eyes again, they were vaguely focused on Percival, his pink, wet lips standing slightly open. He was still silently crying, but he looked neither angry nor afraid, instead a ghost of a smile was lurking around the corners of his lips.

Percival gently blew over the engorged, abused pebbles on Credence’ chest, cooling them down and making the boy twitch. Then he refreshed the lubricant, so that the growing stickiness was exchanged for perfect slip and slide again.  
And then he resumed massaging them.

Credence was now whining at every breath in and out, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“You’re doing very well”, Percival said in a low voice. His own cock was rock hard, but he didn’t need to do anything with that. Nothing was better than this thrill.

This amazingly beautiful, powerful, dangerous creature holding his arms relaxed at his sides, trying to keep his hips still, and, whenever he didn’t forget, following Percival’s orders to push his chest up into the torture he was submitted to.

Credence’ cock was already twitching up again.

Percival smiled at it. “Don’t fight it. It’s alright, it’s my job to control you.”

Credence sobbed a breath, smiling for real now, his gaze utterly unfocused.

A few more, long minutes of playing with his nipples, and slowly Percival was coaxing the erection back into being.

“Oh God”, Credence whispered, then fell into a steady stream of calling out to the no-maj deity, when Percival pinched his nipples a few times.

He let the erection form fully, this time, nearly to the point of precome dribbling out… then banished it again.  
Credence sobbed a laugh, his hips jerking up helplessly.

Then the boy croaked: “Fuck me, you’re _mean_!”

“Yes, and you’re taking it so well, aren’t you.”

Percival stood up, changed the conjured armchair into one without armrests, sat down, spread his legs wide and opened his trousers.  
“Come here.”

Credence had a little trouble standing, and his cock was already trying to get hard again.

Percival waved him over, then maneuvered him into standing in front of him, and leaning forward.  
“You can put your hands on the mattress”, he recommended. Then he started preparing the boy’s hole.

Credence was back to swearing a stream again, so Percival suggested: “How about you beg and tell me how good you are for me.”

“Oh God, yes, I’ll be good, I promise-”

“No, Credence”, Percival stopped lubricating and stretching the boy for a moment. “You already are. Tell me how well you’ve already done, how good you _are_ for me.”

He resumed his efforts, but Credence apparently had a little trouble finding the words.

Then he shyly started with: “I did take that so well, you said, and you were so mean…”

“Yes”, Percival encouraged him. “You’re my good boy.”

“I’m your good boy”, Credence whispered, his head hanging down between his arms. “Oh, please…”

“Do you want me to let you fuck yourself on my cock?”

Credence whined again. “Yes please! I’m, I’m so good for you! And, uh…”

“Is that tight little hole of yours mine as well?”

“Yes, ah, yes!”

“Say it.”

Credence bit off a curse, a small laugh of: “Fucking mean”, then he said: “My tight little hole is yours, sir, please let me use it on you?”

Now Percival groaned a curse. Then he lubricated himself, and he nearly forgot, but caught himself in time.  
“Stand straight, turn to me.”

Credence did, face red as a beet, chest mottled with red splotches, nipples still swollen and pink. His cock was hard again.  
Percival caught his eyes, smiled sharply, and banished Credence’ erection. The boy’s knees buckled, but he caught himself. His lips fell open again.

“Turn back around and sit on my cock.”

Percival helped Credence get his legs to the outside of Percival’s. Then he summoned a mirror to stand in front of them, pulled Credence’ back to his chest and guided him down onto his thick cock.

He’d prepared him well, but the position was new, and Credence was flustered because of the mirror.  
When he was finally fully seated, Percival stroked his flanks, guided his hands to Percival’s knees, and then fondled the boy’s chest.  
His cock was twitching up again. 

Credence was glancing up at Percival, using the mirror to get eye-contact.

Percival smiled toothily.  
“Do you want to beg me to let you stay hard?”

Credence bit his lower lip, then shook his head.

Percival groaned, then ordered: “Move up and down. Like you’re jerking me off with your hole. Get me to spill inside of you.”

Credence let his head hang, started moving, and since that helped his erection form fully, Percival banished it again.

Credence didn’t even falter. He just kept on slowly escalating his movements, expertly servicing Percival’s cock.

“Mercy Lewis”, Percival whispered. Then he pinched Credence’ nipples again, hard.

Credence sobbed a breath and fucked down harder.

Percival cupped Credence’ flaccid cock with a cold hand, gently massaging it a bit, and then, wonderful boy, Credence started leaking a steady stream of ejaculate, truly crying in earnest now.

Percival held his cock through it, even milking it a little.

Credence shook on his lap, his movements finally faltering.

 

Percival banished the mirror, conjured a high, padded bench they had used before, bend the boy over it and fucked into him for real.

Credence was laughing through his tears, swearing at Percival, then begging forgiveness, assuring him that he was his oh so good boy.

Percival spilled into him, letting it leak out, then pushing it back in, groaning and shaking himself.  
He leaned forward to catch his breath, lazily kissing Credence’ neck.

For now, they were fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your comments give me LIFE!
> 
> If you've read until here in one go, this is a good place to take a break! The next two chapters are looong and connected with an evil cliffhanger. :)


	9. Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _We are what we chose to do._

“So as a scientist, sometimes I cannot help but observe things”, Scamander said carefully.

Percival turned to him at this, eyebrows rising.  
He had not thought Scamander to be a bigot, especially since Brits were notoriously less harsh with fraternization laws - be they between wizards and no-majs, or with other pairings unsuitable for polite conversation.

“So may I present a recent scientific observation of mine. When Credence exhibited his powers in obscurus form, at his weakest, they looked like darker, growing shadows. Then, when the effect was stronger, it was like liquid scoria or pumice crawling along walls or forming into waves.  
Now, every time either Credence or you grow irritated, impatient or angry, your shadows grow darker. Nearly imperceptibly. The effect is so weak that at first I didn’t really notice it. But when Credence apparated for the first time, his terror let some of the scoria effect flow out of him.  
If it were just him, with the darkening shadows, the implications would be clear: He is still an obscurial, controlling his obscurus nearly perfectly.  
But then there’s you.”

For some reason, Percival wanted to tell this insignificant little school dropout the truth.  
He knew the man was an expert in his field, clearly. But apparently, he’d also started to trust him, just a little.

Percival slowly let some darkness seep out, controlling the all-encompassing rage and terror to the exact point in which he had to reign it in again, to make the visual effect stop.

Scamander lifted both eyebrows.  
“Ah.”  
Then he turned back to the sea and asked: “What happened to the original Mr. Graves? Did he die?”

“Pretty much”, Percival said, staring at Scamander in something like need.

“...I’m sorry for your loss.”

And he actually sounded sad.  
Percival laughed, a rough, unhappy sound. He stopped himself before the laughter turned into something much more embarrassing.

“Sorry”, Scamander shrugged with one shoulder. “I’m not good at social interaction. With humans.”

“Am I human”, Percival mused.

Scamander looked up from where he was leaning both arms on the railing. “You have the sentience of a human being, but that doesn’t say much.”

Percival stared out to the sea, feeling very much unmoored from the world at large.

“However”, Scamander said, “I’ve followed similar discussions, some spectacular examples of such debates, especially in Britain.”

“Right, the personhood club.”

“The point is, if a creature asks the question: Am I a person - just the capability of such philosophical introversion alone is enough of an indicator to answer the question. In my opinion.”

 

Percival examined Scamander’s expression: Open, a little wistful, meeting his eyes for once.  
“Aren’t you the least bit afraid?”

“I’ve been told I’m missing any natural instinct of self preservation, but that’s incorrect: I simply think creatures aren’t inherently evil. They might be dangerous, yes, that’s why you shouldn’t kick them. They might even be dark. But dangerous? Only if facing an uneducated person.”

“Do you think I’m dark?” Percival smiled coldly.

“Oh, certainly, at least to an extent.”

“But not evil.”

“... a teacher of mine used to say that it’s our decisions that determine our identity. We are what we chose to do consistently.”

 

Percival blinked, then swallowed. He had to look away again. The sentence rang in the back of his mind, like the toll of a grand bell enticing others to join.

Scamander said:  
“This also explains why Credence didn’t ask me about the other obscurial. I tried broaching the subject a few times - he might have just forgotten, yes? - but I couldn’t seem to steer the conversation that way. Which could have just been me. Or his recent trauma. But in fact, he didn’t want to reveal you, yes?”

Percival stared out at sea, both lower arms leaning on the railing.

“Why are you two going to Europe?”

Percival huffed a breath. He liked smart people. But Mercy Lewis, they were annoying.

“To form me, Credence tore into Grindelwal, tore bits of him out - anything that he felt belonged to him. To his Mr. Graves.”

Scamander blinked, his brows twitching.  
“As in, magical energy?”

“And memories, I believe. But yes, there is… residue. I want to get rid of it. And I hope it will naturally snap back to him…”

“...given sufficient proximity.”

“Yes.”

Scamander’s brows twitched. “Memories, you say.”

Percival lifted an annoyed eyebrow at him. He hated repeating himself. Well. Out of bed.

Scamander swallowed, hunched himself into an even less threatening form and carefully suggested:  
“I saw the obscurus attack Grindelwald, repeatedly. And while he certainly did… something to him, I saw no memories being extracted. It’s a rather… delicate process. And the situation was not, shall we say, conductive.”

“I have memories that the original Percival Graves cannot have.”

“Is Credence absent in any of them?”

Percival stared at Scamander with new horror. While yes, that was the case, those memories were even less clear than the ones with Credence in them. And their viewpoint… did he see himself in them, as if looking at himself - well, Grindelwald - from the outside? Could those other memories simply be fabrications of Credence’ mind?

“Mr. Graves, I would really like to know: What happened to, ah, the ‘original’?”

“He was… swallowed.”

Another careful suggestion: “Absorbed, maybe?”

Percival shrugged.

“Is there… anything I can do to help?”

Percival shook his head, not in rejection, but in pure, tired astonishment that there were still people like this in the world.  
“Do you _have_ any Amphisbaena essence?”

 

 

When the ship reached Southamptom the following morning, Scamander left to catch a train to London. Credence and Percival reached Brussels the day after.

 

Wizarding Brussels was a truly unique place.  
The city was three-tiered, one quarter built above the other, as the wizards of Brussels had run out of space to let the city grow into, and the initially built structures had sunk more and more into the marshy ground.

Since the dark ages, when it had been just a castle and a few hovels to the no-majs, the ‘City of Bridges’ had been a center of international wizarding politics and knowledge. 

One of the largest buildings in the lowermost tier was the ancient library. Its existence alone made some wizards call Brussels the only ‘wizarding university’ of Europe.

It was the perfect place to park Credence for the day.

Percival organized him a day-pass, showed him how to use the library, where the restrooms and the snackbar were, equipped him with cash for the latter and told him to have fun.

 

Then he walked two tiers up to the headquarters of the European Auror Association. 

The building was supposedly a masterpiece of modern wizarding architecture.  
A French archiwizard had collaborated with a tribe of stone goblins for it, and accomplished a level of ugliness that had never before been achieved.

It was basically an enormous stone block with ornamental warts. Since it was much heavier than any other building in wizarding Brussels, and had no magical ties to its neighbors - they probably resisted such a connection for stylistic reasons alone - the EAA headquarters had to rely on several zig-zagging pylons to hold it above the other two city tiers.

 

Percival really didn’t like the place.  
Which didn’t excuse the way he simply walked into the EAA’s trap.

 

The entryway of the building was formed out of several consecutive stone arches, each flanked by two aurors on each side. When Percival walked through the third one, one of those aurors was suddenly at his side, asking him to follow her in Dutch.

Percival blinked, then frowned. “I would like to speak to the director. My name is Percival Graves, I am-”

“Please step out with me, Sir”, the woman said, now calmly pulling her wand.

Percival lifted both hands and brows and let himself be escorted into a cell.

They didn’t even go deeper into the EAA HQ; the cells were simply an added area outside of the innermost wards. Percival was reluctantly impressed.

Once he was sitting in the interrogation cell however, he could feel the surrounding walls slowly coming closer. He took a few deep breaths and tried to distract himself from the one thing that made him truly dislike the building: It had no windows.

The thought of sex with Credence helped, which was pathetic, but useful.

 

Thankfully, it didn’t take long until someone else came in.  
Percival supposed that other people were behind the full-wall mirror to one side. But otherwise, the fool was alone.

He was a little younger than Percival, dark blond, with a pronounced limp, and a rather harsh scar alongside his face. He sat across from Percival and stretched his leg out with a groan.

“So”, he said. “What does the Director of Magical Security and head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement of the MACUSA do here, all by his lonesome.”

While Percival hadn’t come completely without a plan, he had thought to play this by ear a little, to rely largely on the authority he usually had, and he was thrown by the small cell. Normally he would have tried to get control over the conversation by asking counter-questions or stating preconditions for answering.

“My aurors recently handed over the war-monger Gellert Grindelwald”, he started, then stopped, trying to collect his thoughts.

The auror across him said: “Who kidnapped and impersonated you in New York, yes.”

“I need… I need to see that he’s in sure custody here.”

The auror nodded thoughtfully. “Closure, then? Is that what you’re after?”

Percival frowned, but nodded.

“Help me out here”; the auror said after a moment.  
“You walk into our headquarters, unannounced. You walk through the Revelio arch, no problem. You walk through the Imperius detection arch, everything is fine. You step into the Dark Magic detection field and all our alarms start screaming at us. Checking in with the MACUSA tells us that you are on leave, not on a mission. Which, fine.”

Percival blinked. He needed arches like that for the MACUSA entryway, pronto.

The auror made an inviting gesture.  
“No dark artifacts on you, no dark spells detectable in your wand - well, after the time Grindelwald supposedly wielded it.”

The auror finished his statement with: “And while I congratulate you for your swift recovery, the MACUSA tells us you spent less than three hours in a hospital. After months of, let’s keep calling it ‘imprisonment’ by Grindelwald.”

Percival could feel his eyes widen and the dark rage in his stomach start to roil.  
He couldn’t help the tiniest bit of obscurus echo trailing after his voice as he asked, very calmly:  
“Excuse me?”

The auror leaned back as if relaxed, but his hand was very close to his hip, and his gaze sharp.

“Nobody escapes Grindelwald looking like you. And how long did he impersonate you, successfully, without any - how did the MACUSA report say it again - ‘inside help’?”

“I’m not one of Grindelwald’s fanatics”, Percival said, then caught the non-intended quote from Tina’s report about the botched interrogation of Scamander. The amusement helped reel in the obscurus.

“You think this is a joke?” The auror narrowed his eyes at him, and Percival could hear the smallest hint of pain in his voice. Ah, so the man had lost people to Grindelwald’s attacks.

“Me being a Grindelwald supporter? Definitely a joke, and not in good taste.” Percival sneered. “You have no idea what it was like, being… under his thumb.”

“Judging from your looks, easy and comfortable.”

Percival swallowed a sour taste and took a deep breath, carefully pushing the obscurus down. 

Then he said: “My lover transmitted some of his own magical energy to me when… he found me. That might explain the ‘dark magic’ you believe you detected.”

“Magical vampirism doesn’t work, thank Judovicus! Not even Grindelwald is trying that. It’s a dead end.”

“Maybe if it’s forced or coerced. But if it is the only want the giver has? I assure you, it works.”

The other auror frowned a little.

Percival leaned back and lifted both his hands in a gesture of shared astonishment.

 

The auror said: “It’s a good story. Sadly, we’re better. And your dark energy? Bears the magical signature of Grindelwald.”

That had Percival sitting up straight again. He pressed out: “Mercy Lewis. Are you sure?”

The auror smiled - the scar made that look very crooked - in clear disbelief.

Percival tried to think. So it was as he’d thought, Credence had torn into Grindelwald, and now the bastard’s magic, memories and morals were tainting Percival’s.

He swallowed again.  
“My lover…” He had to clear his throat. “He fought Grindelwald. He didn’t win, per se, but he was holding his own. And I have… I have memories I shouldn’t have. I had hoped that seeing Grindelwald would clear this up… would show if I am... actually carrying a little bit of his energy in me.”

The auror clicked his tongue, watching Percival for a moment. Then he sighed:  
“Pipenbosch, and you actually believe what you’re saying.” He shook his head. “Can you guys do that, and haven’t told us? Detect a specific wizard’s ‘magical signature’?”

Percival closed his eyes in sudden realization and leaned back again.  
“No. And you can’t either.”

“No. I wish we could, but no.”

Percival stared at the blank table between them. “And you were baiting me.”

“Yes. Now, memories, we can analyze.” The auror smiled apologetically. “I do believe you, and more importantly, so does our legilimens. So would you let us check up on what you described? Maybe you’re the case that might help us crack the puzzle as to how we _can_ identify magical signatures.”

 

It was worth a shot. In his own head at least, Percival knew exactly where the borders between the original man, the obscurus, and the Grindelwald echo were.

 

The tests, experiments and exercises the EAA experts had him doing were grueling, and Percival reached the end of his rope after just a few hours.

However, those experts were the likes of which Percival desperately wanted to hire for the MACUSA, and the library two tiers below them was a great help as well.

There were ways to detect the difference between memories one had originally owned, and stolen or given ones. They even figured out how to tell the line between Percival and the obscurus, although delineating its powers while keeping it hidden brought Percival to the brink of a major breakdown right then and there, and he managed to avoid one only by a hair’s breadth.

The memories Percival had of Grindelwald’s were third hand: Memories of memories of stolen glimpses.

The obscurus energy he had was all Credence as well - of course it was. And the experts were besides themselves at explaining to him how the ‘magically transferred’ energy showed clear parallels to the recently updated information the library had of the phenology of obscuri.

Who would have thought, Percival commented with suitable awe. Just because the energy was separate from the original owner! Oh wow, obscuri-like, huh?!

 

There was spell residue. And it was bad.

The EAA medical ward helped with that quickly and professionally, and Percival did feel a tad lighter afterwards. Apparently they had a whole process established for ‘Grindelwald victims’ by now. The bastard seemed to use the same package of dark magic on many men, women and other people he wanted information from.

With the residue cleared out, only the obscurus pinged the Dark Magic detection wards anymore, and not as a spell or a dark wizard, but a beast.

 

It took quite some time for Percival to finally understand what this meant.  
There was a considerable language barrier - Dutch to English, but also expert to auror.  
And there was an even bigger barrier of pure denial.

There was no ‘Grindelwald echo’. 

There had never been any such thing.

Credence had used his obscurus to create a copy of a mask of a shadow of a man, able to walk and talk and think and decide for itself, much more powerful and autonomous than even a Patronus.

And that copy had sought out the original, infused that shadow of a man with energy and purpose, and walked on.

 

The auror who’d been interrogating him in the cell was the head of the Grindelwald task force of the EAA, Joris van de Velde. Once they’d done what they could to figure out Percival’s situation, and the ‘Dark Magic’ alarm had been cleared, he took him to examine the prison they had used to keep Grindelwald.

Had.

Grindelwald had escaped two days prior.

 

Only the numbness of his newest realization kept Percival from flying into a full obscurus rage at that.  
Van de Velde calmly reported the course of events which had led to Grindelwald’s renewed freedom. The most important part: Somebody inside of the MACUSA had tipped off someone inside of the EAA about the exact location, date and details of the prisoner transfer.

Understandably, the EAA was now in full investigation and lockdown mode, and every single auror was a suspect until cleared by a consortium of legimilentes - after it had turned out the initially used legilimens was a Grindelwald supporter himself.

The EAA had a firm system of double blind tests established by now, and sent word to the MACUSA, which apparently had simply denied any problem on their side.

Percival knew he should wrack his brain about what Grindelwald had said to him while he’d been confined to the hidden chamber. The man had complained like a cat in heat, but had he ever bragged about recruiting anyone?

But what difference did that make at all. 

 

There was no ‘Grindelwald echo’ in his mind and heart and impulses.

 

Percival was an auror at heart, still, so he spent some time with Van de Velde, trying to dump any intel into the man he might find useful.

Then he walked out of the EAA HQ, and slowly descended the stairs and meandering streets, winding back down to the lowermost tier of wizarding Brussels.

It was long dark by then, night falling in the middle of afternoon this far up in the north, and the city was alight with fairy lights, candles and strings of gently sparkling glow-stars.  
Happily chatting wizards and witches walked from shop to shop, hunting for Christmas presents, or enjoying an early after-work mulled wine. Kids darted through here and there.

 

Percival was tired. He felt defeated like never before in his life.

For a few steps he mused on how he’d felt at being defeated by Grindelwald, but when nothing concrete came to mind, he let that train of thought trail away.

 

The Grand Brussels Library was a solid stone building, created from perfectly aligning boulders at the ground level, adding brickwork and timber framing above that, and the turrets and spires of the uppermost level were high enough to have windows going out into the second tier of the city.

Percival went through the main entrance, trying to soak in the subtle hum of ancient magic and active, determined enthusiasm that the place was immersed in.

The main hall, a stocky translation of clear roots in the architecture of the late roman empire, was lining up worktables, comfortable seats and low lamps. The main information desk was behind that, on top of a crumbled relic of the original main staircase.

Asking after Credence got him referred to the Artifacts and Bespelling section. That info desk was manned by a young witch who blushed at the mention of Credence. Yes, she remembered him, he’d been here for a few hours, then she’d pointed him to the Magical Transportation section.

There, the info desk was unmanned, a small plaque chirping: ‘“He’ll be right back!” at Percival.

So he slowly ambled through the section, eyeing the way three wizards had shoved their ladders together to have a heated if very low debate on a huge tome about thirty feet above the floor.

 

Behind a long row of shelves, in a small rotunda, Credence stood hunched over in front of a round table laden with open books, talking to a very small, very old little man with huge glasses. The old man patted Credence’ arm again and again, and laughed a wheeze of breath at Credence’ low questions.

Percival leaned against the corner of the shelf, comfortably invisible in the gap of illumination the floating light orbs left in that area.

When a young witch climbed down a ladder from the upper shelves of the rotunda, Credence straightened up, greeting her with a slightly bemused smile.  
The girl was flushed, her hair strangely sticking up at her right temple - which was soon explained by her nervously fingering the strands there as Credence inspected the book she’d just presented him with.

Credence leaned forward, both hands on the table at the sides of the open book, nodding slowly. Then he glanced up at her, smiling widely, saying something.

 

Percival’s gut cramped with the sure, icy knowledge that this was just the tip of the iceberg. Sure, the new clothes and improved haircut helped, but this instinctive charisma, and the massive power just lurking around the corner had nothing to do with the intoxicating package it came it.

Credence would grow into this, and he would be formidable.

 

When Percival stepped forward and Credence’ eyes snapped to him, the way his sharp features melted into pure delight and wonder at seeing him made the numbness and ice that had permeated Percival’s whole being turn to all-encompassing, pure pain.

 

Percival had Credence spend some time at the local tailor, getting a suit made for him in the newest European wizarding fashion. While Credence was thus tied to the stool the tailor had him stand on to finetune the tailoring, Percival went to bribe a tired desk jockey at the International Wizarding Travel and Transport Agency.

 

Credence was happy with the new outfit: a three-piece suit made to withstand winter cold, and a wizard’s robe over it. He smiled a lot, kept pace with Percival and kept chattering about the library and the nice people he’d met there.

Percival did his best to smile back, glancing at him so often that only their combined dark, tall and fast figures, which made people make way for them, kept him from running straight into someone.

When Credence had exhausted his current topic, it seemed at first as if he was searching for more to say, but then he threw Percival a small, impish grin, and pulled him into an alley.

Percival laughed into Credence shoulder, as the younger wizard pressed him against a wall.  
“Oh you really like it when I buy you things, hmm?”

Credence scrunched up his nose, then kissed him.  
When he started dropping to his knees, Percival grabbed his sides and kept him up there with him, slowly, luxuriously kissing him further.

Credence put his arms around Percival’s shoulders.

Only when his lips started to get a little sore did Percival apparate them to the Foyer of the hotel he’d chosen for them.

They booked a room for a few nights and went up immediately, Credence glued to Percival’s side.

 

Percival undressed Credence like he was the last feast of a man sentenced to death, caressing every bit of skin he revealed. He kissed every scar he encountered and slowly sucked love bites into every sensitive zone he’d grown familiar with.

Credence was eager to participate, but while Percival allowed him to mess up his hair, unbutton his shirt and vest and try to get to as much of him as possible, he also assured him in a low voice:  
“It’s alright, Credence. You don’t have to do anything. Just let me. Just let me.”

When Credence was naked on top of the king size bed, gloriously illuminated by the fireplace and floating bedside lamps, he leaned back onto his lower arms, bit his lip, and his dark eyes glinted.

His legs were slightly spread, no shame lurking anywhere, and he let Percival look his fill, drink the view in like a diver gulped in air before jumping into the sea.

Percival shed his vest, but left the unbuttoned shirt on. He crawled over him, and the boy sighed happily.

Percival licked a stripe up Credence’ erection, mostly to hear the shocked hitch in his breath. Credence legs began to shake, just because Percival was closing his lips over the head of the erection and slowly, slowly taking him in.

It was a long time since Percival had done this. And he was slightly distracted because he wanted to get Credence’ hole lubricated with a wordless spell. Credence did not complain about any lack of finesse, however.  
Then Percival put his wand to the side, truly started sucking the boy down, while fingering his hole.

Credence had such a filthy mouth when he was agitated, spouting profanity after blasphemy, which amused Percival greatly.

It was a very short time until Percival could do his best to swallow the boys release. Credence was apologizing, his voice truly starting to sound worried.

Percival crawled further up and kissed him wetly, letting him taste himself. While that distracted the boy, he still added reassurances:  
“You’re doing fine. Just let me play with your body. I’ve got you.”

Credence’ arms gave out and he fell back with a heartfelt groan.

Percival smiled down at him, then got his wand back to perform another not quite legally registered spell, which nonetheless had been passed from gay young men to even younger homosexuals for a long time now: To get an erection even if one didn’t really feel like it.

It had enabled countless gay wizards to stay in the closet for as long as they wanted.  
It was also considered a little dangerous, but only if coupled with true disgust at the actual consummation, or with drugs, alcohol or a weak heart.

Credence laughed to the ceiling at feeling his erection come back far too quickly.  
“I love magic”, he said, apparently to himself.

Percival snorted. Then he said: “Tell me the moment it gets painful.”

Credence nodded seriously.

With some more lubrication in his hand, Percival sat back on his haunches and massaged Credence’ cock, slowly, patiently, towards his next orgasm.

The boy was flushed all over again, his legs and abs twitching, his hands grabbing the sheets.

When his cock started to dribble again, Percival ordered: “Look into my eyes. If you lose eye-contact, just look at me again.”

Credence nodded, his chest heaving. He pulled one of the plush pillows under his head to keep his neck from cramping, then his sharp eyes drilled holes into Percival’s mind.

 

The boy would grow into his power and be truly, marvelously dangerous one day. A part of Percival hoped to see that. A part of him thought it might even be a good thing to see just before being vanquished by that power. And another part knew better.

 

Orgasm rolled through Credence like a gut punch, making him curl up and gasp for breath.

Percival crooned: “Such a good boy for me. Pull up your knees.”

He got another pillow to put under Credence’ tailbone, folding him up to present his glistening, twitching hole.

A wave of Percival’s wand, and Credence cock didn’t even have time to fully get soft before springing up again. More lube was always a good idea. Then Percival opened his trousers and slowly sank into the boy, his hole barely stretched enough.

Credence grimaced at the pull and stretch, but also moaned in pleasure.

“Let’s see how those orgasms feel like around my cock”, Percival mumbled, grabbed Credence’ erection and milked another orgasm out of him with a tight grip and relentless speed.

Credence’ moans grew louder and louder, and more desperate as Percival continuously fucked into him and simply repeated the steps two more times: Get him hard again, fresh lube, milk the boy’s cock.

By the latest orgasm, Credence was hiccuping and crying, and his chest and belly were wet with copious amounts of semen. The lean muscles in his arms and shoulders were cramping up as he held onto his knees and curled up as if trying to protect his cock.

Still his eyes were locked onto Percival’s gaze.

Get him hard again, fresh lube. Percival was thrusting harder now, his own orgasm looming.

Credence babbled: “Oh god no, I can’t, please!”

“You want me to stop?” Percival asked, his thumb playing with the small slit at the glans.

Credence’ lips were open, he was still keeping eye-contact, but then he closed his eyes, laughed through tears, shook his head, and when he looked at Percival again, he was grinning.

Percival lifted his brows, smiled a little, and pumped Credence’ cock, hard.

Credence’ head fell back, and low, helpless noises spilled out if him, like moaned screams.

Percival felt his own abs pull together as his own orgasm punched through him.

Credence’ only produced a few more drops of come, and when Percival pulled out, he cupped his genitals and begged with a croaking laugh: “Alright, no more, oh God!”

Percival lurched forward, pulled Credence’ legs straight and let his whole weight lie on top of the boy. His rough clothes were conveniently hanging open from throat to scrotum, so there suddenly was a lot of very wet body contact.

Credence laughed again, wrapped his arms around Percival’s shoulders, messed up his hair even worse, and kissed him long and deep and very sleepily.

 

Percival took care of cleaning them up and stoking the fire. Then he made Credence’ some tea and with great concentration stirred in the Amphisbaena essence.

Credence didn’t even question the order to drink it. He simply did so, then apparently wanted to ask something, but his eyes rolled back and he fell asleep.

 

It hurt to dress Credence, but Percival took his time nonetheless. He even adorned the cravat with his own scorpion tie clip.

Then he found himself tracing Credence’ features with his finger: The sharp eyebrows and sharper cheekbones. The incredible jaw line and wonderful, wonderful lips.

With a deep breath, he finally kneeled beside the bed, the small glass scorpion he’d chosen lying on the floor close by.

He had to clear his throat a few times, then waved his wand over Credence form in the gesture Scamander had theorized might be the most effective for this.  
“Centonibus sanentur”, Percival intoned. 

It was a mental mending spell Percival himself had come up with, thinking through his reasoning behind it multiple times. The wording for healing something frail which had been torn to rags felt right.  
And in the end, magic was about intent, always.

“Centonibus sanentur.”  
He planned to repeat it seven times, for the seven corners of the magically mental that were the basis for a lot of mind magic.

“Centonibus sanentur.”  
Of course, it started to work at the third repetition. Percival remembered something about deep weaving magic that one of his professors had tried to teach to teenagers.

“Centonibus sanentur.”  
It was really starting to hurt. Percival watched, strangely detached, as grey goo twitching into black flecks and back seeped out of his own form and went into Credence, growing faster the closer it came to its original host.

“Centonibus sanentur.”  
Five, another important magical number. Percival pressed his eyes closed at the onslaught of memories the obscurus’ power had kept suppressed.

“Centonibus sanentur.”  
There was just so much obscurus to weave back into the boy’s own magic. He could see how it was not just the part that had kept him in power, but also Credence’ own part of the obscurus, that settled into his form tighter and much more solidly.

It became hard to breathe. The room was fully dark by now, Percival’s vision was swimming, and his whole body was screaming in shock at the swiftly growing agony.

Percival pulled in air through his nose, then bit out through his teeth:  
“Centonibus... sanentur.” 

With a snap and a full body jerk, the connection to Credence’ obscurus was torn out of Percival. The dark energy settled comfortably into the boy, who’d never looked more healthy.

 

Percival nodded a few times, his eyes burning. He tried to swallow, but his swollen throat wouldn’t let him.  
Keep a hold of your wand, he reminded himself.  
Then he fumbled around the floor for the glass scorpion.

When he grabbed it, the portkey activated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come scream at me on [tumblr](http://fanfuchs.tumblr.com/) XD


	10. Letting it fly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Anger can be a powerful bridge between fear and courage._

Credence woke up fully dressed: boots, robe, wand and all, and with a string around his wrist. He had a bit of a headache, and no idea what the time was.  
Sitting up, he noticed the fire had burned down to embers, although the candles were kept burning by magic.

Mr. Graves' suitcase was gone, and his own was next to the bed, tied to the string.

Credence combed his hair back with his fingers and blinked, frowning. Then he noticed a note on the side table, folded to stand up, and on the outside saying simply: ‘Credence’.

When Credence leaned over and took hold of it, the world dissolved into a whirl sucking him into the note. Credence let out a startled yelp, then tried not to vomit, as his sense of balance reported several somersaults. Icy drizzle hit his face, then he landed on fists and knees on a cobblestone street.

 

Credence gulped in air, and habitually, frantically tried to pull in the obscurus - but it was as if his mental grip reached into empty air. He could still feel its power. It just didn’t react to the sudden fright he’d had.

Shakily he stood up and looked around.

In some way, he was very surprised not to see Mr. Graves.

It was nighttime, and he was in front of a very cute little house with a white picket fence. There were other such houses up and down the narrow, slightly overgrown road. Christmas decorations twinkled everywhere, many of them decidedly magical in nature.

 

Credence opened his palm to take a look at the crumpled note:  
‘You did nothing wrong. Knock on the door.’

 

Well then. Why hadn’t Mr Graves simply woken him and explained stuff? 

Credence lifted an eyebrow at the, well, cottage in front of him. When he walked up to the open gate in the fence, he saw the name on the letterbox: Scamander. That explained that.

With the itch of a foreboding hunch between his shoulder blades, Credence carried his suitcase to the door and knocked.

 

He had to knock a few times, and when Mr. Scamander opened, he was clothed in run down work clothes, soaking wet and frazzled.

“Credence! Hello!”

“Hello Mr. Scamander.”

“Do come in! Where’s Mr. Graves?"

“I… I don’t know.”

Credence followed Mr. Scamander to a small, tidy kitchen full of warmth and old kitchenware - even decorative plates on the walls.  
Mr. Scamander turned to him and frowned in a queer mixture of worry and tired acceptance.

“I see. Would you like some tea?”

Credence sat down gingerly at a gesture of his host and said: “No thanks.”

“Ah. Well. I’m going to make some for me, then.”

Credence frowned at the overly embroidered table cloth.

Mr. Scamander put a kettle on the range, noticed his own wetness, fixed that with a spell blowing his hair up into a goofy flame of red, then sat down across from Credence.

 

“What happened?”

“We... We were in Brussels.” Credence blinked and instinctively shoved at the obscurus, before he even fully noticed that slowly, he was getting afraid again. There was nothing to shove down though, the obscurus wasn’t reacting.

Credence felt his eyes widen, and he frowned in concentration.

“And?”

“I had some tea and… fell asleep…”

“Ah. Was it very citrusy, without being sour, the tea?”

“What?” Credence glanced up. That described the taste perfectly. He could still chase it in the back of his throat.

“May I ask, how is, ah, your magical power feeling?”

“What?” Credence frowned harder.

Mr. Scamander leaned forward and to the side a little bit, glancing up at him.  
“Your obscurus, Credence. Is it still volatile?”

Credence blinked. “...no. I think.”

Mr. Scamander nodded. “I believe Mr. Graves gave you back the power you lent him. And steadied it at the same time. This is what I hoped to try in New York, in the underground.”

Credence stared at him. Then he said: “But he can’t have.”

The kettle trilled a little song, and Mr. Scamander poured tea for both of them. His silence was argument enough.

 

“No”, Credence said. “You don’t understand, he _can’t_ have.”

“Because he was using that power? I think he might have found a way to cope without it.”

Credence shook his head.  
This couldn’t be. This was worse than waking up in the rain and having Mr. Graves next to him.  
So much worse than roaring through the underground, unable to truly hurt Grindelwald, because he needed him to take his betrayal back, no, so, so much worse than being called a squib and useless.

He was neither. He just wasn’t wanted.

 

Credence saw his hands clinging to the table in a white-knuckled grip. His whole world was tilting again, just like when the note had transported him here. Here.

“Where is this?”

“Watford. Close to London.”

 _You did nothing wrong._ So he had done everything he could, and it still wasn’t enough.

After a long moment, Mr. Scamander gently said: “Credence? I was just trying to give Priscilla a bath - would you help me?”

Credence nodded numbly. Why not.

 

Nothing mattered anyway.

 

The house belonged to Mr. Scamander’s grandmother, and she’d left it to him in an effort to get him to settle down. It was cozy, if very tight. There was a stuffed armchair in a small nook with a round window looking out onto the yard that quickly became Credence’ favorite spot.

Mr. Scamander barely used the kitchen, since he was a horrible cook, but Credence was still amazed at the good feeling a steady supply of fresh bread, cheddar, preserves and apples gave him.

He helped Mr. Scamander as much as he could, grateful to have a roof over his head, like his ma- like Mary Lou Barebone had trained him to be.  
By doing that, he learned a lot, which also felt good.

Overall though, when he wasn’t distracted by working with beast or reading books, there was numbness and silence in his mind.

 

Shortly before Christmas, Mr. Scamander took him to wizarding London.  
Mr. Scamander didn’t have a tree or any decorations up, apart from a few strings of lights the overbearingly lovely Mrs. Kutscher from next door had simply extended over his fence.

But there were amazing sales on magical beast supplies at this time of year, so shopping they went.

Credence felt a flicker of self-deprecating amusement at his derogatory view of Diagon Alley. After seeing Brussels, it was just… quaint. But then his heart started to hurt too much: He’d seen wizarding Brussels and London now, and all because of-

The Beast Box was full of magical creatures: Owls, cats, snakes, spiders… Credence ignored the small glass cage containing golden scorpions. An owl screeched at him, and Mr. Scamander commented:  
“They can carry messages. Very reliable. I hope that soon every wizarding household will have one. We need better ways to stay connected in these times…”

When the customer before them was done and Mr. Scamander started to haggle for beast foodstuffs, Credence wandered into a darker corner of the shop, where a tiny whine came from. On the floor, in a small cardboard box, there was a black kitten.

Credence carefully extended his hand, and the shy creature needed a moment before its tiny head gently nudged Credence’ fingers.

Credence felt like crying. He carefully petted the small fella until Mr. Scamander crouched down next to him. The shopkeeper said behind them:  
“That’s a regular cat. Not a magical bone in it.”

A regular cat in a magical beast shop. “Like a squib”, Credence whispered.

Mr. Scamander asked: “How much?”

“Eh, take it. You’re a very valued customer, Mr. Scamander.”

 

It didn’t even have a price, it was that unwanted.

 

Credence lifted the frail bit of plush and put it under his coat, where it rummaged around for a moment and then started to vibrate and buzz.

Mr. Scamander bought a litterbox and litter, some cat food and a few toys on top of his massive order. When Credence offered to pay for it in a low voice - he had found money in his suitcase after all - Mr. Scamander declared that Credence needed a proper Christmas gift anyway.

When that made Credence feel bad about having no Christmas gift in return, Mr. Scamander happily suggested that he do the next round of negotiations with the Dung Lions - those massive beetles needed a lot of convincing before letting them get their dung castles out of the suitcase.

 

On Christmas morning, Mr. Scamander made them scrambled eggs which didn’t come out too bad, and then they went to a wizarding catholic service that Mr. Scamander had found out about.

Credence felt weird at first, as if he had no place in a church anymore.  
Mr. Scamander had adopted an explorer’s view of the proceedings, as if observing the goings-on in a group of magical creatures. But when the sermon had Francis of Assissi as a topic, who had been a wizard, Mr. Scamander seemed very happy with the whole talking-to-animals-bit.  
At the end the priest gave them all a stern warning that looking down on muggles was not what God had intended when He’d created all of his creation to be equal.

“Is a blind man worth less than his seeing brother?”, the priest asked. “Of course he cannot do all the things a seeing man can. But does that change the intrinsic worth a human being has?”  
The congregation mumbled their approval.

The priest warned them sternly against the kind of thinking Grindelwald tried to disguise as common sense or cold logic. Credence got a headache just from thinking about how very wrong Mary Lou Barebone had been, and how many lies he’d been fed in his childhood.

Still, when they came back home with milk and cocoa, and Mr. Scamander tried not to burn it on the stove, Credence lifted the kitten up and said in a low voice:  
“Hello, Francis.”

 

 

“I miss getting angry”, Credence confessed very apropos, glancing at Mr. Scamander to gauge his reaction. “I know it’s wrong, but-”

“Naah.” Mr. Scamander said, putting up his feet and sipping his tea, while Credence rolled dung over to the transport box. “Anger isn’t wrong per se. Killing someone in anger is, of course.”

Credence hunched up his shoulders.

Mr. Scamander amended: “In your case, there were extraordinary circumstances. The point is: It’s a tool. See, I don’t… fear. My brother was the same, and it got him killed. Fear has a function, yes? It warns us, makes us stop and consider other options. It can also freeze you in an inopportune moment, but it has a function.

“Now anger is like that. It can make you lash out and spread damage, yes. But it can also be a powerful bridge between fear and courage.”

Credence heaved the last dung orb into the box, wiped his hands on his work pants and nodded thoughtfully.

Mr. Scamander said: “You could have just levitated all of that, you know?”

Credence looked at him in outrage. Mr. Scamander sipped his tea, the corners of his eyes crinkling. Credence felt a laugh bubble up inside of him.

“Why didn’t you say something, oh, two hours ago?!”

“You’ll sleep well tonight, won’t you?”

Credence threw a wordless, wandless itching hex at him. Mr. Scamander deflected it, laughing, but at least it made his tea spill.

“Mr. Scamander-”

“Credence, really. Call me Newt.”

“... Newt.” Credence smiled a little. Then he said: “Thank you.”

 

 

It took a few nights of clandestine practicing in the arctic area inside of the suitcase, but Credence did figure how to do all of the things he thought he needed. The last night of practice was really only proving it hadn’t been a string of flukes.

When he climbed out of the suitcase, he put on his best three-piece, the American wizard’s coat Mr. Graves had bought him before even the wand, and the scorpion tie pin.  
The smart hat he’d bought himself in Diagon Alley went just a tad crooked, and the boots were loud enough Credence had to be very careful while sneaking down the stairs.

He found Francis in the darkness on the rug in front of the coal fire, and crouched down to scratch his scalp and whisper a few promises to him.

From the armchair at the kitchen side of the living room, Newt’s low voice said:  
“Will you come by New York by any chance?”

Credence jumped up, which made Francis scuttle away. A wave of his wand and the dim lights came on.

Newt was wrapped up in his large duvet, his hair sticking up to one side. He gnawed at his lower lip and watched Credence worryingly.

 

“It’s just, I have a letter, and it would be very kind if you’d take it with.”

Credence’ heart was hammering. He cleared his throat, but no words came to mind.

Newt lifted his eyebrows.  
“I assume you’re not going there directly, but it would probably still be much faster than going by post, and I, ah, lack the private address…”

Credence clenched his jaw and nodded.

“I’ll fetch it”, Newt said. He jumped out of his duvet nest and came back with the letter in seconds. He handed it to Credence and kept looking at the letter.

“It’s for Ms. Goldstein. I was planning to address it to the MACUSA, but I was a little uncomfortable with sending a private missive to her workplace…”

Credence carefully put it into an inside pocket of his coat.

“Merlin’s beard”, Newt mumbled. “Please be careful, Credence.”

Credence nodded. “I’m terrified, so don’t worry”, he said with an attempt at a grin.

Suddenly, his arms were full of Newt, who pressed himself against him awkwardly for just a few seconds.

 

“Alright”, Newt said. “Off you go then.”

 

Credence walked out of Watford, to a quieter area at the river Colne. Waterways were conductive to the kind of magic he’d attempt, he had learned in Brussels.

He pulled out Grindelwald’s amulet and carefully coaxed out the old summoning spell. It was still connected to its caster, that much old Mr. Brickel from the Magical Transportation section had assured him of.

Still, he needed the darker power within him, which was now settled, yes, much easier to control, and painless, but would probably keep its main properties forever.  
Darkness whirled up around Credence. 

In the back of his mind he heard his Mr. Graves mutter: “Stand up straight for me, my boy.”  
“Chin up, shoulders back”, Newt said in his memories, “Or you’ll hurt yourself taking this on!”

Alright, so Newt had been talking about lifting a baby Nundu, but still.

Deep breaths, and now to let himself be consumed by the whirling blackness, dissolve into it, but keep absolute control over it.

 

God, nothing made him crave sex with Mr. Graves as much as doing this: Letting the darkness fly while keeping the tightest possible leash on it.

 

The last thing to dissolve into the darkness was the pendant. Credence concentrated on the tiny filament of magical thread between it and Grindelwald, then a juggernaut of pure blackness and power disappeared with a dark whirl and an inner-ear pop.

 

Grindelwald had set up shop at a shore. There were several hovels nearby, and the area felt tainted and wounded. Credence walked closer to the cliff’s edge and looked out over the sea. A slight rain was coming down, and Credence had not yet figured out how to repel it. But his coat was great, and the hat had come with a sticking charm attached.

Credence fingered the amulet and summoned Grindelwald from one of those low, decrepit houses.

It took a few minutes, but finally, the white blond head of Grindelwald shone in the darkness, as the wizard walked up to him with long strides.

“Credence”, he called against the winds. “How wonderful to see you!”

 

Credence put the pendant back in his pocket and crossed his arms. He took his time evaluating what he saw. Newt’s lessons on dealing with dangerous creatures came in very helpfully.

Grindelwald was well-dressed and smiling widely, although his opened arms slowly sank down again. He looked tired, and he was trying to hide that.

Credence said: “You’re not well?”  
He had the wind and the moonlight at his back.

Grindelwald’s smile turned a self-mocking on the surface, and dangerous under that.  
“Where have you been, Credence? You look great!”

“With Mr. Scamander”, Credence said, and then started to walk towards Grindelwald. It didn’t matter what he said, he just wanted a little bit more time. The terror was close to unbearable, and no anger was at hand to turn it into courage.

“Ah. How is he, hmm? ‘Not well’ as well, I suppose?”

“He’s fine. Why?”

Grindelwald crossed his wrists at the small of his back, and somehow they started circling each other.  
“Didn’t he die, just a little?”, Grindelwald asked, and the way he obviously thought he sounded clever or dramatic was soothing Credence’ escalating fear.

He frowned and said: “What are you talking about?”

“No”, Grindelwald said coldly. “I am not well. You tore into me, and I didn’t mind, because I thought you’d join me anyway, and give back what you had stolen.”

Credence blinked slowly.

“And you did the same to Scamander, which I minded even less”, Grindelwald smiled toothily.

 

Credence stopped walking and straightened up from the slight crouch he’d adopted.

“What?” he said, then burst into laughter. “Oh my God”, he snorted. “I shove you around a little bit, and you ‘die, a little bit’?”

“You’re an obscurial, my boy”, Grindelwald said in a low voice. “An obscurus is by nature a parasite. You suck the life energy out of people.”

Credence thought: Magical residue. An echo.  
“Does that mean I also… become a little bit like you”, he asked.

Now Grindelwald snorted. “Does a man who eats beef become a little bit like a cow? Of course not.”

“I see. Well”, Credence said, “I wanted to kill you. I didn’t particularly care about Mr. Scamander.” He shrugged in a deliberately loose way.

“And do you still want to kill me?”

“Why, because you’re prime beef? Tell me, if you believe wizards are superior to no-majs, and that wizards should therefore rule over them. Is then a wizard who’s merged with his own obscurus superior to you and shouldn’t you be kneeling and swearing fealty to me?”

 

Credence had seen it coming, but it still surprised him when Grindelwald lost it at that.  
He screamed a curse, thereby announcing his next move.

The last bit of Credence’ fear evaporated into righteous indignation. Yes, he’d attacked the man before and failed to get to him properly. But Grindelwald was much better at defense than attack, and this time, Credence knew how to apparate as well.

The first few exchanges were hard casts by Grindelwald and jerky deflections of Credence. But the low light from the moonlit clouds above and houses at a small distance let Credence hide nearly all of the obscurus’ movements, and when Credence suddenly let his physical form dissolve, Grindelwald was expecting a wave of scoria darkness to come at him from that direction.

A split second before he apparated, Credence had reformed behind him, and was already extracting memories from the man’s head, even while side-alonging.

Oh sure, some of the memories were completely lost when Grindelwald jumped increasingly desperately from place to place without being able to shake the obscurus off which calmly, coldly extracted memory after memory.

But keeping the memories intact for transport was secondary. The most important bit was that Grindelwald _lost_ them.

 

Grindelwald screamed at him, tried to throw glowing green curses at him that Credence thought might be the killing curse, so he made the darkness part for them - this was easy, darkness naturally simply left where light appeared.

He had expected Grindelwald to do so far earlier, but it took some time for him to apparate into one of the houses and scream at his local accomplices for help.

Now this Credence had to be careful about: He needed to be corporeal to extract memories, but could only avoid getting hit by dissolving into the obscurus. Avoiding hits by just one wizard was relatively easy if one had handled Kinglies before.

But to avoid getting hit by several wizards from all around him, Credence had to turn full obscurus for a second, pull himself together, then sharply expand into a disk, shredding all men around them in half, and the walls of the house as well.

Grindelwald apparated away in that moment of distraction. Credence let the roof fall through the obscurus and hovered around for a long moment. He had to gently juggle the thin strips of memories inside of the scoria cloud, since they should not be assimilated.

 

When Grindelwald didn’t reappear and nothing else happened but the collapse of the small house’s chimney, Credence let himself land on two feet again.

The memory strands were hard to keep from falling off his wand, but he had a small vial with him, even though he hadn’t exactly planned to take them with, originally. But Newt always had several vials with him and had declared that a point of pride for a wizarding scientist.

He’d also declared Credence a wizarding scientist for reading so many of his books and asking so many questions. Credence still was unsure if that had been an odd attempt at coddling him. But he was proud to actually have a magically sealing vial with him, nonetheless.

 

Nobody came out of the other small houses, which was good, he supposed.  
For a moment Credence stood in the drizzle, which slowly turned into sleet.

 

He’d fought Grindelwald, and not only survived, but won. Twice. But there was one memory he still needed.

There was an ocean at his back, which was decidedly not conductive to the kind of magic he needed, but then, he know had tried and succeeded once before.

He took out the pendant, concentrated on the thin thread of connection, let himself dissolve and apparated.

 

 

When he walked into the Leaky Cauldron not half an hour later, he was soaking wet, very tired, but also very satisfied.

Sure, Grindelwald had been surrounded by his staunchest allies or something, who’d all died a gruesome death, but this time, Credence had managed to side-along, get the string of memories about himself - just their encounter from this night, everything else had been gone already - and then he’d let Grindelwald go.

Another of Newt’s lessons: Just because you’d managed to get an Erumpent to turn this way or that a few times did not mean you’d survive it if she sat on you.

 

Credence dried himself off with a spell, sat down at the bar, ordered a drink, asked the barkeeper about rain repelling spells and where to catch a train to Southampton.

 

 

A week later, Credence walked up to the Woolworth building in New York. He told the guard he needed to speak to the auror Ms. Goldstein, and when the guard told him he needed to verify that with her, and asked which name to announce him under, Credence said:  
“Credence. Just Credence is fine.”

The guard lifted an unimpressed eyebrow, wrote a quick note, which folded itself into a small paper mouse and hopped into a tube in the wall.

Credence blinked and thought of Francis.

He crossed his arms and looked around fondly while waiting.  
In a way he had expected to hate coming back to New York. But even though nearly all of his memories of this place were horrible in some way, just hearing the drawl all around him, just having people walk the right speed on the sidewalks lifted such a strange weight off his shoulders.

 

The door banged open, and there she was. Tina Goldstein stared at Credence with eyes so wide he could see white all around her irises.

Credence smiled, and when he noticed his shoulders hunching up _stand straight for me… Chin up!_ , he made himself stand straight again.

“Mercy Lewis”, Ms. Goldstein whispered.

The guard asked:  
“Everything alright, auror?”

Ms. Goldstein grabbed Credence’ arm and said: “Oh yes, totally fine, he’s my cousin! He has infos for a case of mine!”  
She pulled him through the door. Behind that door, a desk and a row of barriers was set up. 

Ms. Goldstein had the elderly lady at the desk make Credence a visitor’s badge under ‘Credence Goldstein’.

 

Credence eyed the strange barriers and asked in a low voice: “Are any of these, uhm, sensitive to, uhm…”

Ms. Goldstein whispered back: “Shit! Yes!”  
Then she smiled at the desk lady: “Nevermind, Ethel, we’ll go out for a coffee instead!”

 

Unnecessarily, she pulled Credence along, out of the building again. They walked along the sidewalk with long strides. She was visibly freezing in a matter of seconds, so Credence wordlessly threw her a warming spell.

She pushed him, then pulled him back close to her again. “Don’t do that! Not in public!”

They reached a small coffee shop soon and Ms. Goldstein pushed him into a booth.

Credence mused that the obscurus of old would probably have reacted to that much manhandling. He wondered why on earth he’d find it charming now.

Ms. Goldstein sat down across from him and stared.

“Hi”, Credence said. Then he pulled out the letter and handed it to her. She tore it open immediately.  
Since she didn’t notice the waitress, Credence ordered coffee for both of them.

She was a fast reader. She put the letter down and looked up, still wide-eyed.

 

“So”, Credence smiled dangerously. “Where is he.”

“Are you mad at him?” Ms. Goldstein asked and clenched her jaw, lifting her chin at him.

“Yes. But there’s no need to worry.”

She frowned at her letter, folding it together, then trying to press it flat where her rough handling had crumpled the paper.  
“He’s… in a bad way. He’s getting out of the hospital today, actually, but…”

Something cold dropped into Credence’ belly. “He’s been in the hospital until today?”

“Yes, well, the damage had been kept… in stasis for so long, it was… resistant to common medical magic. I mean, he looked tons better yesterday than when he’d first portkeyed there, but not… good.”

Credence nodded, looking down.

 

Ms. Goldstein babbled on:  
“He doesn’t like visitors, and he’s forbidden us to visit him, but I still did. I didn’t want him to be alone on top of everything.”

Credence nodded again. He knew very well that Mr. Graves would not want to see him weak or frail. And the part of him that didn’t particularly give a shit what Mr. Graves wanted was the deepest, darkest part that was not for listening to.

 

But still, his heart was pounding with a quickly growing urgent need to get to him get to him GET TO HIM.

Credence frowned. He’d be calm enough while leaving the ship and waiting for Ms. Goldstein,so where did the urgency come from?

Ms. Goldstein was saying something about trying to help fattening Mr. Graves up by stuffing him with baked goods, but Credence had to blink several times against the rising tide of GET TO HIM.

Finally, with an instinctive glance over his own shoulder, he felt like he was in the woods and all the birds had stopped singing, which was ridiculous - the clatter and chatter of the coffee shop had kept on without a hitch.

When the next wave of urgency hit him, Credence leaned forward, grabbed Ms. Goldstein and apparated them into Mr. Graves’ appartement.

 

There was a crash and boom from the living room. Ms. Goldstein lost her balance and fell, cursing at Credence with more worry than anger in her voice.

Credence grabbed the door frame and swung himself into the living room by it. He had to duck a curse flung his way immediately. A wizard stood in the middle of the living room, teeth bared, and snarled another curse at Credence. Mr. Graves was crouching not too far away, half hiding behind a toppled bookshelf.

“Abernathy!” Ms. Goldstein gasped from the door. She was, however, not fully in the room yet. That was important: The exact dimensions of the room.

Abernathy turned to her, lifted his wand and snarled: “AVADA KED-”

By then, Credence had jumped up, closed his eyes, and with a horrible wench, snap and boom, the obscurus turned into a flat disk, cleaving Abernathy in half but going over Mr. Graves and stopping before hitting any walls, much less going through a door.

Credence snapped back into his form and fell to his knees.

Ms. Goldstein issued a small whimper, otherwise frozen in her spot.

 

The stench of the blood and intestines was overpowering; Credence wondered how he’d not noticed that when fighting Grindelwald.

 

With a slow creak, the floor lamp, which had been tilting already, fell down as well.

 

Mr. Graves grumbled: “Okay. I’m moving out.”

 

Practicalities took over for a few hours. There was after all a disgusting corpse and an even worse betrayal to take care off.

It was an enormous blessing that Ms. Goldstein - “You saved my life, for Mercy’s sake, call me Tina!” - had been there.  
Soon, aurors swarmed the place, while Credence made Mr. Graves sit at the kitchen table and stay seated there.

Credence’ presence solved a few questions the MACUSA had asked Mr. Graves which he had refused to answer, and piled up a long list of questions they now had for Credence.

When Credence promised them, quite a bit annoyed with the fact that they weren’t cleared to leave yet, that he would come by as soon as he could find the time, the black woman in front of him straightened up, stared at him in outrage, and opened her mouth for a telling-off.

An old, large part inside of Credence cringed and wanted to hunker down or apologize and take off his belt.  
Another part calmly took note of how Tina frantically shook her head at the other witch, who fell silent, bewildered.

“Until then, can I take Mr. Graves out of here, now?” Credence asked, frowning. Behind his left side, Mr. Graves made a sound curiously like a giggle.

The tall woman waved her okay, and Credence glanced at Mr. Graves.  
“Hotel?”, he asked.

Mr. Graves looked too old, too gray and too small for Credence’ liking and it annoyed him so, so much. His smile looked tired when he said:  
“Whatever you want, Credence.”

Credence huffed a breath, put a hand on Mr. Graves shoulder and apparated him to the hotel they’d stayed in after the rain.

 

Credence made Mr. Graves sit down on ‘his’ bed and then stood above him, hands on his hips.  
“Do you need medication or something?”

“Yes, but only tomorrow, and I need to go to the hospital to get it.”

Credence took in the dark shadows under his eyes, how much further the grey in his hair had spread, and the hollowed out cheeks like a man in the desert gulping down water.

For a moment, he tried out the thought of using the obscurus to try and heal the man fully, but he wasn’t sure if that would work.

 

Mr. Graves leaned back and looked up like he was watching a particularly beautiful sunset: With distant awe.

Credence avoided his gaze and swallowed.

Then he said: “You shouldn’t have left me like that.”

“I had to.”

Credence’ gaze snapped back to him, trying to set the man on fire by the look alone. 

“Credence, I was what you _thought_ you wanted me to be. I was your wishful thinking, the shadow of a mask made in the image of a shell of a man, taped together by your needs, and rage and power.”

“So?!”

Mr. Graves shrugged with one shoulder.  
“I needed that power, or rather”, he smiled in self-deprecation, “I didn’t want to face my actual… state. So I bound you to me.”

“We already established that that was what I wanted.”

“What you thought you wanted. You have… a limited view of what’s possible in this world.”

“Oh my god. You threw me away because you were what, insecure?”

“I did not throw you away.” Finally, at last, a flicker of anger on the man’s features. It immediately made him look younger and less… defeated.

“Yes you did.”

“I set you free.”

“From what. From you? Oh please, as if you could have kept me if I didn’t want to stay!”

Mr. Graves lifted both eyebrows at that and Credence had to glance away. Maybe he had a point.

“So maybe you kept me bound to you. But I _wanted_ that. And you had no right to rip that from me!”

Mr. Graves sighed. “I had to.”

“Why? For fucks sake, WHY?”

“Because it was unhealthy!”

“As in deviant? Queer? What, freaky?!”

“No. As in evil.”

Credence laughed humorlessly. “Bullshit! You hit me exactly _once_ , and that was directly after the rain, when you didn’t have your memories, and Grindelwald’s influence was strongest!”

Mr. Graves cringed like he was in pain.  
“There was no ‘Grindelwald’s influence'.”

“Maybe not on you, but certainly on the obscurus.”

“No, the EAA in Brussels tested it. There was no ‘Grindelwald echo’.” 

Credence blinked. “They can test that? No, wait, why did they test that?”

“Because we needed to find out how much influence he had on me!”

“On you? You didn’t shape the obscurus, I did! And maybe there was no echo because beef doesn’t turn you into a cow” - Mr. Graves frowned in bewilderment and opened his mouth to ask a question - “but the thing is… you were never evil.

"I formed the obscurus, and yes, maybe I didn’t quite know how much better it could even be, but the… the shadow alone, the… afterimage of the mask of you was enough to… do this, to create you. Just a drop of you, and then that used my power to put yourself together again.”

Credence opened his arms and lifted both eyebrows.

“And I love you.”

He went onto his knees and put both hands on Mr. Graves’ legs, who’d simply closed his mouth again, and still looked like he was in pain.

“You’re not evil, and what we’re doing is not evil. I have seen evil. I have lived in hell. I _know_ evil, and how it likes to disguise itself as righteousness. Look what Mary Lou Barebone made of me. And then look at me know. That was _you_.”

Mr. Graves frowned hard at that.

“Okay, and Newt, and myself, but also and most importantly, you. Evil doesn’t have this as a result.”

Mr. Graves sighed and nodded, conceding the point.

Credence pressed his lips together.  
“So why was I not good enough to keep”, he asked then.

“No, you were perfect.” A hand went up to Credence’ hair. “But I truly needed to set you free. You needed to spread your wings a little at least once. Without me.”

“Then why not tell me?!”

“Because I knew the consequences and I knew you wouldn’t let me, I suppose.”

“Which makes you a coward, not a hero, you know?”

Mr. Graves snorted, then said: “Fine.”

Credence stood up, annoyed again.

“Were you afraid of me, is that it?”

“No, never.” Mr. Graves stood up as well. “I… might not have been thinking straight, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry if I hurt you.”

“If!” Credence spit out. “Oh please, you were terrified that _I_ would keep you then, by force!”

“You wouldn’t have. But you would have been begging me and I would have caved immediately.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t have?”

“You’re not evil either, you know that, right?”

Credence scoffed. “I killed people.”

“Shaw, I know. He was just a no-maj.”

Credence rocked back onto his heels and stared at Mr. Graves. Then he slapped him.  
Immediately after his hand had made Mr. Graves’ head snap to the side, he put both hands to his own mouth.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry!”

Mr. Graves laughed a little.  
“No, I deserved that.”

Credence cleared his throat.  
“Also, I killed wizards as well.”

“What? When?!”

“In Britain, when I was fighting Grindelwald.” Credence started to smile again, while Mr. Graves slowly sat down again.

“What?” he said in a small voice.

Credence lifted an eyebrow and let himself fall on the other bed, putting one ankle over the other leg, and leaning back onto his hands.

“What do you think of me now?”

Mr. Graves swallowed. “Killing Grindelwald’s army doesn’t make you evil either.”

Credence narrowed his eyes at him.  
“What would you think of me if I lost all my magic.”

Mr. Graves sighed. “I’m sorry for the ‘Wizards first’ rhetoric, I truly am. It’s… not easy unlearning such beliefs.”

Credence pursed his lips. “I’ll help by slapping you if you slip up again.”

Mr. Graves grinned at him. “Thanks.”

For a few seconds, they simply looked at each other, both faces slowly settling into gentle smiles.

Then Credence jumped up and went to where he’d thrown his coat and hat down. He took out the vial with the memories and handed them to Mr. Graves.

“Grindelwald’s memories of you. He shouldn’t remember you at all. Or me.”

Mr. Graves stared at him in utter astonishment. “You didn’t.”

“Sure did.”

Credence jumped onto his bed again. Mr. Graves stared at the vial in his hand and was visibly searching for words.

Credence said: “I think that definitely qualifies as being your good boy.” Then, to his annoyance, he flushed.

Mr. Graves threw him an unimpressed look. “You’re joking.”

“I was just checking how sick you really are.”

With a flick of Mr. Graves’ wrist, Credence’ pillow hit him in the face. Credence dissolved into laughter, as Mr. Graves stood to loom over him and tried to keep a straight face while saying:  
“How dare you! I’ll never be too sick to control you little minx!”

Credence smiled up at him.  
“Good.”

Mr. Graves sighed:  
“Dyer’s curse. I've created a monster.”


	11. My Nightingale is Singing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _There now you may find e'en_   
>  _In the shadow_

Credence could hear Percival’s annoyance growing, as he argued with Jacob, Queenie’s husband, in the kitchen.

Of course Jacob was the expert, but Percival’s whole concept for this Christmas seemed to be recreating his own best childhood Christmas memories for Credence, and Percival’s mother had simply prepared a few things differently than Jacob did it.

 

Credence smiled down at Francis in his lap and listened to the sound of his love’s voice without giving any attention to the actual words.  
Francis was staring with full concentration at Pickett, who was hiding in the Christmas tree, Tina and Newt arguing with him to let go of it.

“Pickett”, Newt admonished. “You know fir isn’t good for you, its essential oils will hurt you if you’re not careful, and we both know you won’t be.”

Tina whispered: “Where did he learn _that_ gesture!”

“Pickett..!” Newt tried to grab him again, but the Bowtruckle was very, very well camouflaged and very, very nimble.

 

The door to Percival’s and Credence’ house was flung open, then quickly shut again. Queenie squeaked, presumably at the snow flurry that must have tried to follow her in, judging by sound alone.  
She called up from the entry area:  
“I got it!”

As Francis jumped off his lap to do his duty and greet the returnee, Credence snuggled deeper into his armchair, pulling his knees under the sweater Percival let him ruin like this.

Queenie’s quick steps came up from the door, rushed through the small foyer, and then she was brandishing a small paper bag triumphantly.  
“I will never understand why you two settled down in Brooklyn of all places, but there was one store still open!”

Credence said in a low voice: “It has a yard, Queenie. A _yard_.”

Percival appeared in the door to the kitchen, lifting both hands as if in prayer. “Yes!! Thank you, Queenie!”

She brought her prey through to Jacob, who started complaining that now, nutmeg had no place in this recipe, launching Percival directly into a new rant.  
Jacob whined that Queenie was _his_ wife, so why would she run out into _that_ weather - probably pointing through the sunroom out to the yard, which was buried in white - to fetch nutmeg for Percival?

“Oh shush! It was important to him!”

Percival’s voice rose an octave: “Are you patronizing me?!”

Jacob laughed: “Oh well then, you’re just too sweet a gal, Queens!”

“Unbelievable!”

Credence had suspected Jacob was baiting Percival on purpose, but maybe he’d been wrong and Jacob was truly that passionate about cranberry sauce.

They were all wrong about Percival’s temper anyway. Since he’d let go of the obscurus, he was still tough and and sometimes unsympathetic to the point of being harsh, but his temper was actually very calm and calculating. He just liked to play the borderline choleric grump from time to time.

Credence mused that possibly, it was a bit of a game for the others as well.

 

“Alright, enough!” Newt huffed and puffed as if he’d ever get truly angry with Pickett. “Pickett, fir oils are very _flammable_!”  
He pointed to the fireplace, and Tina rolled her eyes.

Pickett made small clicking sounds, apparently a little bit unsettled, actually.

 

Queenie came into the living room, leaving Jacob and Percival to hash out the newest debate about alcohol in baked goods. Credence had caught whiffs of these things before, of course. Sometimes he’d positioned himself in front of bakeries to stand directly inside of the cinnamon and hot apple juice scented clouds.

But he’d never had wine and spice cake like Percival’s mother had made every December, or the kind of chocolate cake that also contained a little bit of rum.

Queenie settled down on the large, plush rug in the middle of the room, pulling a stray bit of tinsel for Francis to play catch with.  
Her delighted giggles made Credence smile again.

 

Why wasn’t he happier.  
Queenie’s eyes snapped up to him, but he only noticed when Francis complained about the suddenly deceased tinsel.

He locked eyes with her and frowned a little. He had not invited her into his head.

‘Sorry’, he heard her whisper in the back of his mind. ‘That was just like a waft of really cold air from you.’

Credence sighed and nodded, looking down. He was glad Queenie’s official legilimens training of the last year let her answer silently now, so at least no one else clued in to his mindset.

‘Why am I sad?’ he tried to think towards her.

She shrugged with one shoulder, a sympathetic, not dismissive gesture, and resumed playing with Francis.  
‘Maybe you’re thinking of all the Christmases you missed out on?’

That was definitely part of it.

'Or you miss your sister?'

No, he'd covertly checked up on her a few times, but she had changed a lot since starting her new life, and he would have been nothing but a shadow from the past come to haunt her.

‘Or you feel like you can’t trust this?’

Credence pouted a little. That problem was an old favorite.

Queenie glanced up to Newt on his stool and Tina, who was half under the tree, trying to reach Pickett from there.  
‘I always have to think of our parents at Christmas. I’m reeeeaally glad we’re here this year. Last year was… bad.’

Then, she hadn’t been allowed to reveal anything to Jacob, but she’d been very much in love, and Tina had missed Newt, and her favourite boss was in the hospital and in a very bad shape that had surprised pretty much everyone but Percival himself.

Credence nodded and stretched his neck a little.

‘But I think maybe that’s part of Christmas, at least for people like us: There’s a dash of salt in every good cake, right, love? So maybe there needs to be at least a few silent tears in all of this sweetness.’

They shared a small smile at that thought.  
Maybe sadness had a function, just like anger and fear and letting go of control from time to time.

Queenie squeaked at that last bit, and Credence smiled toothily at her. That’s what she got for coming into his mind uninvited.  
She poke her tongue out at him for that one.

 

Tina groaned in complete disgust. “This is impossible”, she complained.  
“Pickett, if you come out of there, I’ll get you your own _special_ kind of tinsel, and we’ll shrink down some ornaments for you, what do you say!”

Newt whispered: “Oh that’s good!”

He held his hand open deep inside of the tree and added: “You don’t want lousy _fir_ tinsel, right? You want the _special_ tinsel!”

Apparently Pickett was actually slowly climbing onto Newt’s hand, at least Tina scrambled out from under the tree, picked up some stray tinsel from the floor - which there was a lot of, now that two grown people had tried to climb into the tree - and made it iridescent with a quick spell.  
That effect was far too tacky to use on a huge, actual Christmas tree, but Credence supposed it wouldn’t look half bad on Pickett.

Tina hissed: “Which ornaments can I shrink, Credence?”

Credence shook his head and snorted. “Any. We have far too many anyway.”

Percival and him had gotten into a little shopping spree, especially on their last trip to Brussels. The Europeans really knew how to craft amazing bait for two tall, dark wizard’s who apparently had a drop of Niffler blood in them.

Tina shrank a few of the blueish silver filigree stars. Then Newt and her sat down on the couch to adorn Pickett, who held extra still for this, and then started a kind of really slow dance, brandishing his new look very, very proudly. 

Queenie laughed and clapped in delight. “Aren’t you handsome, darling!”

 

Jacob came from the kitchen, wiping his hands on a dish towel.  
“Who is?”

“Why, you, darling!” Queenie chirped. Tina and Credence rolled their eyes.

Jacob flushed a little, then bend down to give her a very chaste kiss. Credence whistled nonetheless, and Queenie waved at him to stop it. Jacob seemed pleased however, and sat down on the armchair closest to the fire.

 

“So!” he said. “Any plans for the new year?” He eyed Newt and Tina and wiggled his eyebrows in a truly disastrous way.

Newt blinked. “What plans, why?”

Tina smiled indulgently. “We’ll see”, she said.

Percival was leaning in the door frame leading to the kitchen, arms and ankles crossed.  
“We’ll go to Britain for a while”, he announced.

“Oh no”, Queenie said, instantly looking scared. “You’re going to join the task force?”

Percival nodded.  
“Don’t forget, Queenie, Grindelwald doesn’t remember us. But we know a lot about him, and Joris and his team have a few very good ideas how Credence can use that head start to our advantage.”

Newt was still looking at Pickett’s little show as he asked: “Will Professor Dumbledore join as well?”

Percival made an affirmative sound.

 

Credence took a deep, satisfied breath and tried to burn this moment into his memory. Percival’s hair was still half grey, but his cheeks had filled out again, and while there were a few crow’s feet, especially when he smiled one of his more evil grins, he looked fit and dangerous and very handsome.

He locked eyes with him, and an instant spark rushed down to Credence’ loins. God, he loved the man. And all of that tall, gentle danger was his.

Who knew what next year would bring, but this moment was especially perfect because they had a plan, and it was a good one, and it was important, and dangerous, and slightly dark.

 

Newt said in a low voice: “Is it true then? He’s… trying to get children to form an obscurus?”

A shadow flickered over Percival’s features: Pain and fury and a little bit of terror.  
“The EAA thinks so. He’s certainly capable.”

Credence said in a calm, firm, slightly happy voice: “We’re going to annihilate him.”

Percival lifted an eyebrow at him, and Credence grinned. “Slowly, if possible”, he added.

Tina said: “Mercy Lewis, Credence, tone it down on the darkness, alright?”

Newt mumbled: “Sorry for bringing it up.”

Tina, Queenie and Credence all jumped over each other’s words to reassure him that no, he had not done a blunder at all.

 

Jacob cleared his throat and asked: “Queenie?”

Queenie pressed her lips together and tried to smile shakily.

“When did you plan to tell me?”

“After Christmas…” she said. “I wasn’t even sure I was planning to go as well!”

Jacob huffed a breath. “Great. I assume Tina and Newt are also off to cross the big lake?”

Percival lifted both eyebrows at that and looked at them. “You did take him down once before”, he encouraged. Newt mumbled something, and Tina said soothingly: “We’ll think about it.”

Jacob complained: “What, and I’ll stay here with all of you over there fighting in a war I barely understand, and I do what, bake cookies?!”

Credence said: “And take care of Francis.”

“And my beasts”, Newt added.

Tina said: “Oh wow, that’s… a job.” 

Jacob whistled slowly. “Hoo boy. I see.”

Pickett clicked a few complaints because no one was watching him anymore, so Newt crooned compliments at him.

Queenie, still sitting on the floor, clapped her hands. “Presents!”

 

 

Later that night, when the feast had been vanquished and the Manhattan troupe had left,  
Credence was laying belly-down on his bed, wrists tied to the bedposts.

Percival was slowly, methodically fucking into him, one hand at his throat, the other under him, fondling his soft genitals to get him to a point to banish the erection, again.  
He was wearing the new leather gloves Credence had gifted him with that evening, which had earned him a sardonically raised eyebrow and an embarrassed squeak from Queenie.

The leather was cool and powerful and simply amazing against his skin.

Credence bowed his spine a little, closing his eyes and letting his mouth fall open.

 

The hand at his throat moved to grip his outgrown hair and pulled his head back even further.  
Percival’s low voice said at his ear:  
“Are you drooling, my boy?”

Credence smiled, his lips still open.

Percival’s thrusts went a little harder, and he shifted his other hand to his hip, to hold him in place. 

Credence whined as he could feel his cock, only half-hard, dribble into the sheets.

Percival moaned, then let go of Credence’ hair, grabbing his shoulder instead and laying down on top of him, his movements shallow and slow for a moment.

Credence blinked through his wet lashes at the small flames flickering in the fireplace, at Francis on his cushioned chair watching them, glittering eyes in the dim light, purring loudly, and beside him stacks and stacks of books leaning against the wall next to Credence’ side of the bed.

Percival bit into his other shoulder, hard, like a wolf holding down a bitch to fuck her, and Credence mumbled:  
“Perfect.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Look at this amazing (nsfw) fanart!!!](http://fanfuchs.tumblr.com/post/154637898369/thesensualaristocrat-illustration-for-fanfuchs) AaaaaAAAHH!!
> 
> Thank you so much for letting me lead you down this road! I appreciated the encouragement, and I'll treasure every new comment and kudos that might come my way! 
> 
> Come cry with me on [tumblr](http://fanfuchs.tumblr.com/)!! :)


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